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| NEW, OLD-STYLE CABINETS FROM J-R |
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Page 1 of 2  Plus: Our Register & Win winner of the week!Los Angeles, August 27 – “Simon Chase of Hunters & Frankau sent me some old pictures of the Dunhill Humidor in London and the cabinets looked so awesome.” That was the genesis of a new and quite popular revival of the old-school style of all-wood, slide-lid cabinet boxes in a new series created by J-R Cigars’ Lew Rothman. Seeing the elegance of the old cabinet-style boxes, originally developed by Zino Davidoff for his Chateaux Series of cigars back in 1946, Rothman set to work immediately to create yet another new way to buy cigars, but with a twist: no cellophane. “The right way for cigars to be packed in these [slide-lid boxes] is uncellophaned. That allows the cigars to marry and mature in the box,” Rothman wrote in an e-mail message. “However, transporting them leads to damaged wrappers once they are removed from the box. So I wanted the consumer to have the ability to cello the cigars. At the factory level, these cello tubes are exactly the right ring gauge, but the people who apply them do nothing else. Personally, when I re-cello a cigar the tube always seems to get caught on the cigar band. “So I had the factories involved put cello tubes that were two ring sizes larger than normal under the left and right sides of the wheels of 50. That way even someone as clumsy as me can get them on with no problems. This packaging has also resulted in some cost savings as there are only 20 boxes of thousand cigars and no hardware (hinges, clasps, etc.) that have to be imported from Europe.” The result is the “Cabinet de Cincuenta” or “cabinet of fifty” series of new sizes for some of the best-known brands on the American market, including or planned for El Rey del Mundo, Excalibur, Fonseca, Hoyo de Monterrey, La Gloria Cubana, Macanudo, Montecristo, Partagas, Punch, Romeo y Julieta and so on. In order not to compete too directly with sizes already made by Altadis U.S.A., General Cigar, MATASA and others, Rothman had the factories make the cigars in sizes that were a little different. For example, in Macanudo, the Cincuenta size is seven inches by 47 ring, the classic Cuban Churchill size. The closest competing size in the regular Macanudo line is the Prince Philip at 7 1/2 inches and 49 ring. And while the Macanudo Cincuenta cabinet is $174.95 when in stock, that’s just $3.50 per cigar in the box of 50. “It’s an excellent value,” says Rothman, who has overwhelmed his art department with new packaging projects. So many, in fact that he complained recently that they will not all be done for the holiday rush. “Some are going to be introduced in January and February next year, even if we didn’t plan it that way.” Persistence pays off: Pio VI is back on the market Alberto Media is nothing if not persistent. He created the boutique Pio VI brand in 1996, just as the Cigar Boom was hitting its peak. But rather than being able to enjoy the fruits of creating a well-liked brand, he found himself in a lengthy, grinding tug-of-war over the brand that lasted six years. |
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Did you know?
“After nationalization of the cigar trade, Cuba introduced only one new brand between 1960 and 1990: Cohiba.
