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VIOLENCE OVER AN 85-CENT CIGAR!

Plus: Last of the Jamaica-made Macanudos at J-R

Los Angeles, 14 January 2005 – I guess cigars are too expensive after all.

New Hampshire news media reported on a Monday evening fracas at a 7-Eleven store in Manchester in which a customer protested the price of a cigar by throwing a metal display rack at the store clerk!

The incident took place at 11:30 p.m. when the night clerk, Rana Ansarul, was asked by the assailant if he could buy one cigar from a pack of five.

The pack – brand undisclosed – sells for $2.39 (48 cents per stick), but the store sells single sticks for 85 cents. The customer became enraged at the price, threw the cigars at Ansarul and then threw an adjacent counter rack at the clerk. The entire incident was captured on the store’s video-surveillance system.

Ansarul was taken to the hospital for facial injuries, suffering two split lips and the loss of his two front teeth. The assailant is still at large.

Opportunity: Stores can avoid this kind of problem by keeping their tobacco products behind the counter, as is required here in California. Moreover, the store could have offered the customer a hand-made cigar for 85 cents if they stocked super-value brands like J-R’s Mr. B or Trinidad y Cia., currently available for $11.95 for bundles of 20!

Getting Hot about Getting Humid:
We heard from the geek element about our story on Wednesday on “set it and forget it” humidors, the chief complaint being “what about a high-tech solution”?

Yes, there are some:

• The most popular is the Cigar Oasis, a small, brick-shaped device which has an internal fan that sprays microscopic amounts of water into the air to keep humidity at 70% on its external sensor.

This gadget uses electricity and has a neat, film-thin ribbon on which the humidor can be closed. The ribbon is attached to a standard electrical cord!

It’s a great device, easy to use and easy to refill (with distilled water) every six months or so. The small unit for use in desktop humidors costs around $100.

• Naturally, when it comes to high-tech, there’s an intricate German solution. Here are two wild ones which we saw at last summer’s Retail Tobacco Dealers of America show:

> The CigarSpa:
This contraption is about 6 3/4 inches long by 2 inches wide and requires four “AA” batteries. It holds enough distilled water to handle four months of work in a typical desktop humidor and offers a LCD read-out of the current humidity and temperature, preferred level of humidity and the average humidity over the past three days! The humidity level is also adjustable between 65% and 75%.

> The Hydrocase:
This system includes an internal fan and is microprocessor controlled, but is fairly compact at 7 inches long by 3 1/8 inches high, by an inch thick. It uses an antiseptic sponge to hold the water and samples the interior atmosphere of your humidor every three hours. If your cigars need moisture, steel vents open and the fans pumps out moisture. If not, they stay closed. Moreover, if there is a malfunction, the lithium battery is low or more water is needed, the system sounds an audible alarm! About $159 at retail.

• Not to be forgotten is the Diamond Crown Humidification System from J.C. Newman, which uses a system of sliding, stainless steel vents to adjust the humidity inside your humidor. It has a reservoir gauge, uses distilled water and comes in two sizes, costing $55-75.

All of these will keep your cigars fresh, while giving you plenty of time to explain how they work to your friends.

Need a Quart?
The newest catalog from inventive Lew Rothman and his J-R Cigars team includes the follow-up to one of their wildest promotions ever, the “Gallon of Cigars” (above) into which tons of General Cigar seconds have been packed and shipped in paint cans with gaudy orange labels.

Even at modest prices of $55-70 for 45-60 cigars, there’s room for a new size: quarts!

Now, you can buy “One Full Quart of Cigars” of seconds from the General Cigar factory in Santiago, Dominican Republic for $29.95 for 50 sticks. Only one size is offered: a 4 1/4-inch by 38-ring Short Panatela, most likely their Macanudo Petit Corona size (not seconds!), cut to fit into the cans.

Rothman noted that if the gallon cans had been used, these smaller cigars would be almost 200 to the can! Perfect for golf courses, but maybe not as attractive at retail!

J-R is also offering another General “blast from the past” with the last of his stock of Macanudos made in Jamaica. Production of cigars in Jamaica has fallen dramatically in the last decade, as Macanudo was moved to General’s Dominican factory for good in 2000 and Altadis moved Royal Jamaica to their Dominican facility the same year. Only Barrington House Cigars in Kingston is active, with their brands Guaranteed Jamaica, Fundadores Jamaica and Pride of Jamaica.

But from 1971 to 2000, Macanudo was a Jamaican brand for General and its reputation for mildness and easy draw were born there. J-R has the Duke of Devon size remaining (5 1/2 x 42) in boxes of 25 for $84.50, the same price as charged for the current line.

Thanks, Lew!
~ Rich Perelman

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