 Machine-made and small cigars outsell higher-profile premiums by 10-to-1 each!
Los Angeles, November 24 – While compiling our “Steals and Deals” from Famous Smoke Shop last week, I noticed some new entries in their brand listings.
King Edward.
Optimo.
White Owl.
All stars in the machine-made universe, a long-ignored area of the cigar world which is continuing to dominate sales in the United States.
Consider that for every premium, hand-made cigar sold in the U.S., there are ten machine-made cigars purchased for a total of about 3,000,000,000 (that’s billion with a “b”) each year. The top brands are familiar names to every smoker:
Swisher Sweets, still no. 1 . . . Phillies . . . White Owl . . . King Edward . . . Garcia y Vega . . . Optimo . . . Dutch Masters . . . Garcia y Vega . . . and older stars like Antonio y Cleopatra, Muriel and Roi-Tan.
While the adulation of premium cigars continues, the action in the machine-made market has come from better packaging, flavored cigars, heavy promotion at the retail level and, of course, from low prices.
A box of 50 White Owl New Yorkers – a respectably-sized 5 3/8-inch by 41-ring corona – can be had for $19.95 by mail or a couple of bucks for a five-pack at convenience or drug stores nationwide.
But the big action has been in flavors. A veritable flood of flavored shapes has hit the market in recent years and this area has been responsible for some of the new popularity among machine-made cigars:
> Swisher Sweets offered flavors for the first time in 2002 and now features Blunts (5 x 42) in chocolate, strawberry, cinnamon and peach and other sizes in Tequila and cherry!
> Phillies’ flavored series also took off in 2002 and their popular Blunts (4 7/8 x 41) are available in berry, Chocolate Aroma, honey, peach, sour apple, strawberry and sweet vanilla. Other Phillies shapes are offered in Cognac, rum, vanilla, Strawberry Daiquiri or Strawberry Margaritas!
> White Owls, which started as a handmade cigar of all Havana tobacco (aka “Clear Havanas”), now offers wild flavors in its range such as grape, Mocho Mint, blackberry and apple, along with the more traditional flavors.
Along with these giants come new brands which are just as excited about the machine-made market as the many distributors who got into the handmade frenzy during the Cigar Boom of the mid-to-late 1990s.
Take Royal Blunts, for example. It’s made by Swisher for a Southern California-based distributor which has paired the two-size brand (Blunts of 5 x 40 and Cigarillos of 4 1/2 x 29) with a wild array of flavors and a clothing and accessory line. You can choose from Cherry Vanilla, Wet Mango, Georgia Peach, Sour Apple, Blueberry, Passion Fruit, Strawberry Banana, Watermelon, Strawberry, Jamaican and Black Cherry!
Wet Mango? Why not!
For many younger smokers for whom cigarettes are passe and the thought of spending $10 on a premium cigar is frightening, these are the entry-level brands.
“Ultimately, the consumer is enjoying the great aromas, great pricing and fun packaging that these cigars offer,” noted Jeff Wagner, Director of Corporate Sales for Royal Blunts and a veteran of more than 30 years in the premium cigar business. “They afford the consumer a way to smoke in a price-oriented, flavor- and aroma-oriented society.
“No one is suggesting that Premiums are finished. Everyone knows that great cigars are a source of pleasure and indulgence like wine. However, there is now room for the domestic cigar smoker to his head high and seek out this new category from his tobacconist and his pharmacist.”
Flavor and aroma is another reason why the brands of John Middleton also rank highly among the top sellers in the nation. Its unique pipe-tobacco-filled cigars are marketed under brands names like “Black & Mild,” “Cherry Blend,” “Gold & Mild” and “Prince Albert.” Widely enjoyed, they’re often imitated, but the popularity of these brands has not been duplicated.
What about so-called “little cigars”? Defined by the U.S. Government, these cigarette-sized brands also sell in the billions with Swisher Sweets Little Cigars leading the pack with roughly a 50% market share. Naturally, they are available in flavors such as cherry, peach, strawberry, milds and menthol.
Remembering that premium cigars account for between 250-300 million units sold each year, the estimated cigar consumption in the U.S. – combined for large and little cigars – totaled 6.45 billion in 2002, the last year for which statistics were available. That’s 24 cigars for every man, woman and child in the country, the most since 1980.
More people are heeding one of our favorite lines, from the Jack Webb’s 1955 gem, “Pete Kelly’s Blues”: “Here’s a cigar . . . Light one up and be somebody!”
~ Rich Perelman
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