Cigars, Cigar Information and where to find Premium Cigars, Discounted Cigars and even Cheap Cigars

GETTING INTO THE SPIRIT OF CIGARS

Plus: Bush Administration policies cut Cuban travel by more than half

Los Angeles, December 22 – After spending money you don’t have for holiday presents, parties, a New Year’s Eve cigar to remember and an extra night out or two this month, it’s going to be time to tighten up that wallet in January.

We’re here to help. We’re midway through our tasting of value cigars, with the list to appear in early January. Already, the inventive Alec Bradley Cigar Co. is working hard to make what President Alec Rubin calls “three cigars-a-day smoking” a reality once again.

Their Spirit of Cuba line is now bundled instead of boxed and offered at suggested retail price of just $1.24 to $1.32 each. That means that even in evil states like California with tobacco tariffs of almost 100%, not to mention state sales tax, these cigars will run you less than $3 each.

Rubin has also discovered what many distributors have not: simplicity sells. The Spirit of Cuba is offered in only two sizes, a Robusto (5 inches by 50 ring) and a Churchill (7 x 48). To match the strength to the smokers, there are three blends offered: a medium-bodied blend with a Connecticut-grown natural wrapper, a medium-to-full-bodied blend with a Nicaraguan-grown “Habano” wrapper and a full-bodied version with a Nicaraguan-grown Corojo wrapper.

Manufactured in Honduras, all Spirit of Cubas are made with sandwich filler, combining medium and possibly some short filler inside long-filler leaves, predominantly from Honduras and Nicaragua. The binder is also Nicaraguan-grown.

Rubin points out that smokers of machine-made domestic brands can switch to handmade brands for only a few cents more and hopes that Spirit of Cuba will the bridge cigar of choice for such conversions. Unfortunately, the Spirit of Cuba only comes in bundles of 25. For smokers of Phillies, Swisher Sweets, White Owl and other domestic stars, however, most purchases are of packs of five or 10 cigars. Could a 6-pack sampler of two of each Spirit of Cuba blend in an airtight, re-sealable pouch be in the future?

Torano time:
Known for decades as makers of quality cigars for others, but not under their own name, the Torano family has been on a roll since the introduction of their own brands in the mid-1990s.

Now, interest in their cigars has led more than 5,000 “torano-istas” to register as “Torano Insiders” at the company’s Torano.com web site and enjoy benefits including product announcements and pre-release sampling of some new cigars. There’s no charge to sign up, so what are you waiting for?

More Gossip:
We had a couple of inquiries about what the “Gossip” cigar purse from Wayland, Massachusetts-based JuSyB looks like since we noted it last week. What started out as a box of 50 Macanudo Caviar (4 inches by 36 ring) cigars is now a purse that looks like the picture above. You can see dozens of other designs from the sisters Bowher online at JuSyB.com.

From the Cubador:
Reports from the U.S. Department of State indicate that the Bush Administration’s heavy-handed policy against travel to Cuba is working as intended.

A dramatic reduction of 57.4% was reported in seats reserved for charter flights to Cuba since the new regulations became active in July: only 50,588 seats have been booked while during the same period in 2003, 118,938 seats were reserved. This does not measure the impact of travel to Cuba from third-country carriers, such as from the Bahamas, Canada and Mexico, but it is clear that the trend is downward.

Reservations for travel in December are down by 67% from last year.

All of these restrictions are designed to lessen the availability of hard currency to Cuba and weaken the financial standing of the Fidel Castro-led government. While doing so, it is also clear that no changes will come to the governance of Cuba until the 78-year-old Castro dies. Whether the Miami-based anti-Castro Cubans, or the U.S. government have a workable plan of how to work with pro-democracy elements in Cuba when that day comes is not clear. What is plain is that as long as Castro is alive, he will retain absolute power on the island.
~ Rich Perelman

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