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

SPRINGTIME FOR CIGARS!

Plus: possible terrorist connections to the sales of counterfeit cigarettes

Los Angeles, April 18 – With more than 1,000 brands on the U.S. market, do we really need more cigars?

Why not?

So with springtime come new releases that you’ll see in stores soon:

• C.A.O. extended its popular Brazilia line with the Lambada, a 6-inch by 50-ring giant that becomes the sixth shape in the series.

“It fills a size niche for us,” noted C.A.O. Chief Marketing Officer Jon Huber. “It’s a popular size in the domestic market and we introduced it basically in direct response to consumer requests.”

The Lambada was officially introduced on April 1 and comes in beautifully-decorated boxes of 20 and retails for $5.75 each ($115 per box).

Huber noted that the Brazilia line, introduced in 2001, competes with its well-respected Gold line as the best sellers in the C.A.O. line-up. “It’s like picking between your favorite child,” he said. “Brazilia is always in the top two [lines] for us. The Italia and Mx2 are also hot.”

The monstrous Brazilia Anaconda shape, an 8-inch by 58-ring perfecto with a bulging bottom, was the only other addition to the original line. Introduced as a specialty item in July 2004, production of that shape was limited to 70,000 at the CAO Fabrica de Tabacos in Danli, Honduras.

• General Cigar extended the surprisingly strong Excalibur Royal Sterling line with the Dignitas shape, a 5 1/2-inch by 52-ring robusto.

Introduced at the 2004 Retail Tobacco Dealers of America Convention and International Trade Show, the line featured the much-loved Excalibur interior blend with a nearly-blond, shade-grown, low-priming wrapper grown in Honduras that just slightly lightens the taste.

At the time, one General executive told me how the line was developed, saying “Well, we had all this very good light wrapper lying around and we didn’t know what to do with it.” That’s how successes are born, and the Royal Sterling has become a pleasant addition to the Excalibur line.

The Dignitas is set to retail for $5.60 per cigar or $112 for a box of 20. Although the original three-shape line included a robusto – the 5 1/4 x 50 Nobilis – it was only offered in boxes of 40. Whit Beebe, General’s director of marketing for Excalibur, noted that “Since the consumer preference for robusto sizes remains a prevalent trend within the cigar industry, we developed Dignitas, a 52-ring gauge offering.”

• General has also extended the Excalibur 1066 line in an odd way with two new sizes of the Dark Knight shape.

When the 1066 line debuted in mid-2000, it had four shapes – Merlin, King Arthur, Galahad and Lancelot – all with Cameroon wrappers. Then the Dark Knight shape was introduced in mid-2003 with a Connecticut wrapper and like the new Royal Sterling Dignitas, was only slightly bigger (5 3/4 x 54) than the robusto-sized Merlin (5 1/4 x 50) already in the line!

Well, now the confusion is really on because the Dark Knight II and III are here, originally introduced as part of a special Dark Knight promotional three-pack in a wooden case.

In addition to the original Dark Knight, you can now fire up a Dark Knight II, a 6 1/2 x 52 toro or the Dark Knight III, a 4 1/2 x 50 robusto. If NHL hockey ever returns, maybe they can promote the Dark Knight package for the “three stars” of the game . . .

Anyway, you can now buy the Dark Knight II and Dark Knight III on their own, in boxes of 20. The II sells for $5.55 each at retail (before local tobacco taxes) or $111 per box, while the III goes for $4.70 (before local taxes) or $94 the box.

What will be next in General’s line extension march? We already have Macanudo Café, Macanudo Gold, Macanudo Vintage, Macanudo Maduro and Macanudo Robust, so a separate line of Macanudo Tubes is probably coming, to be followed by regional blends Macanudo Rubes (east) and Macanudo Dudes (west) and maybe a cross-promotion with Kraft Foods for its new Mac and Nudo home-style casserole line . . .

Counterfeiters bringing tobacco and government together:
Showing once again that the root of all politics is money, cigarette maker Philip Morris is working with state governments to extend laws which hold retail agents responsible for sales of counterfeit cigarettes.

According to an Associated Press story on Sunday by Brendan Farrington, tracked sales of legitimate cigarettes in California rose by 42 million packs after a similar law was enacted, raising an additional $36.7 million in cigarette taxes.

The story also cited a U.S. Government Accounting Office report from 2004 that noted Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives research that linked illegal cigarette distribution to “groups such as Islamic Jihad and Al-Qaeda.”

A counterfeit carton of brand-name cigarettes such as Marlboro can be fabricated for as little as $2 and then re-sold for as much as $70 in high-tax states such as New York.

This, of course, is the inevitable outcome of continuous tax hikes on tobacco products and it will only get worse over time. We have already noted here the rising rate of not only cigarette smuggling, but also hijacking of cigarette shipments in Canada, possibly linked to organized crime.

Philip Morris spokeswoman Jamie Drogin said the firm had confirmed sales of counterfeit cigarettes in 19 states and had concerns in 23 more. There are sales-tracking laws in 11 states and bills in process in 15 others.

Several of the state laws also prohibit so-called “gray-market” sales, also a problem with cigars. Gray-market sales are made of cigarettes (or cigars) which are purchased legally in a low-tax state and then re-sold for a higher amount in a high-tax state.

With the price of Cuban cigars rising over the past several years, this has been a problem for Habanos distributors in several countries, including Canada. Cuban cigars legitimately purchased in low-tax countries such as Spain or in the Middle East are then re-sold for what appear to be discounts in high-tax countries such as Canada with the resellers taking the profits.

Bonus Rankings Flipbook Offer!
Subscribers to our CigarWire service already have access to our exclusive rankings of the top mild, medium and full-bodied cigars. Why not join them?

Through the month of April, you can get our all-in-one package of (1) one-year subscription to our value-packed CigarWire, (2) one copy of our 600-page Perelman’s Pocket Cyclopedia of Cigars for 2005, (3) one copy of our newPerelman’s Pocket Cyclopedia of Havana Cigars (third edition) plus (4) our 24-page, vest-pocket-sized 2004 Rankings Flipbook!

That’s normally a $61.85 value with shipping, but we’re offering all of this at 23% off at our special, discounted price of $47.50 through the end of April only.

Your subscription will also include our “Week in Review” newsletter sent each Thursday with a summary of our top stories of the week!
~ Rich Perelman

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