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| REMEMBERING PICKETT'S CHARGE |
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Page 1 of 2  Plus: the rebirth of the famed Montecruz brand at the IPCPR show!Las Vegas, Nv., July 17 – It was a hot July the third in 1863, the third day of the bloody battle of Gettysburg when the South’s Army of Northern Virginia marched on the Union positions in what is now known as Pickett’s Charge. The day ended the Gettysburg battle with the Union victorious on the field and the Southern army in retreat. General George Pickett, whose division was the main participant in the battle for the South, was forever immortalized for the activities of that day. What does this have to do with cigars and the 76th annual International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association convention and trade show? Ask Mike Tarnowicz. He’s the owner of Battleground Cigars of Hazardville, Connecticut and makes an interesting line of cigars that are named for Civil War notables such as U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and so on. In a stunning, creative move, he packaged 40 of his “Pickett” size – a small 4 1/4-inch by 40-ring torpedo – standing upright in a box, in four rows of 10 cigars each, looking very much like an army on the march! He calls it “Pickett’s Reunion Charge” and each cigar has a band with a portrait of Pickett on it, so that the cigars look like soldiers in formation, complete with a face on each! The chest also features a photograph from the 50-year reunion of the Gettysburg battle in 1913 in which survivors of the battle ended up hugging each other instead of firing bullets. It’s a sensational collectible all on its own and retails for about $200 per chest! That was one of several interesting sights at the IPCPR show; also: After the Menendez family - owners of the H. Upmann factory in Havana and the Montecristo brand - left Cuba following the nationalization of the cigar industry in 1960, they landed in the Canary Islands of Spain and created Montecruz as a replacement for its Montecristo brand in the United States. From 1962 until the Cigar Boom, Montecruz was considered one of the top premium cigars you could buy in the United States, completed with a crossed-swords logo and yellow box. The brand left the national consciousness with the introduction of the Dominican-made Montecristo in 1995 and died a slow death . . . until being revived again! The blend is new, however, and the brand’s formal title is Montecruz Aged Cameroon, with a Cameroon wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Honduran, Nicaraguan and Peruvian filler leaves, in seven sizes in boxes of 21. Welcome back! |
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Did you know?
“American cigar consumption bottomed out in 1993 at 3.42 billion units (13 per capita), but premium sales are up.
