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PLAY BALL!

Plus: new cigar bar in Massachusetts and Australian thieves rob couple of tobacco crop!

Los Angeles, April 26 – It was a lot more than a badly-needed victory for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Lefty Oliver Perez and closer Jose Mesa combined for a 2-0 win over Houston in the first game of a six-game homestand at PNC Park that started with Cusano Cigars President Michael Cusano throwing out the first ball.

That was nice, but even nicer was the in-game promotion by the Pirates and event producer CX2 that created a canopied area for 100 baseball fans who also happened to be cigar smokers. They experienced the joy of generations of baseball fans who got to smoke cigars and watch the national pastime, live and in-person. The program was supported by Cusano and local smokeshops, offering a seldom-seen welcome to cigar lovers at parks today.

Even with expected tiny crowd of 8,413 in the park, braving 53-degree weather and 14 miles-per-hour winds, Cusano communications officer Cliff Randolph noted that anti-smoking forces had complained to the Pirates about the event. “The Pirate organization and event organizer CX2 should be congratulated for persevering and holding the event,” wrote Randolph.

Cusano supported the party with Cusano 18 and Cusano Corojo ‘97 medium and medium-to-full-bodied cigars, perfect for the weather!

New Cigar Bar in the land of no:
Despite one of the nation’s toughest anti-smoking laws, a new cigar bar is set to open in Milford, Massachusetts.

The MetroWest Daily News reported that veteran bar owner Joseph Batista – owner of the legendary, rowdy, but now defunct Joe Bat’s (a victim of eminent domain!) – will open one of the state’s few cigar bars in the back end of his Up in Smoke cigar shop at 138 Main Street.

“I want it to be a nice place for guys or women to converse and relax over a fine cigar and a drink,” he told writer Leslie Dixon. The cigar bar area itself is planned for a 12-by-26-foot back room into which a standing bar, leather chairs and tables will be squeezed along with imported beers, spirits and your choice of top cigars. It will accommodate about 30 patrons at a time.

The current Massachusetts anti-smoking law permits cigar bars as an exception to the workplace smoking ban. Instituted last July, Dixon reported that the state’s Department of Revenue has issued three permits so far, with two others pending (including Batista’s). Cigar bars are allowed in a retail store that sells tobacco products and which derives at least 51% of its revenue from tobacco.

Massachusetts permits smoking in private clubs under certain circumstances, so the few cigar bars in the state are not the only indoor spots where smoking is allowed. But it’s a rational alternative to the zealotry of California’s anti-smoking law. No surprise there: Massachusetts has the thoughtful Mitt Romney – hero of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games organizing committee in Salt Lake City – and California had Gray Davis, willing, apparently able, but ultimately unable to muster control of his own party or the state’s electorate.

Tobacco: the new favorite of thieves?
Reports from Australia noted a unique crime in Cheshnut near Wangaratta in the province of Victoria last week: the theft of 94 bales of tobacco!

An elderly couple was tied up in their house by gun-toting thieves, who opened the barn to make off with the tobacco, estimated to have a black-market value in millions of dollars.

Neither victim was injured and they managed to free themselves after about four hours and signal the police. No suspects had been arrested as of Monday.

New blend for Cuba Aliados:
Having secured the distribution rights for the Cuba Aliados brand made in their own factory, Puros Indios Cigars announced a change in brand’s blend.

“After several months of taste testing, we determined the original wrapper gave the Cuba Aliados cigars a flavor profile which was much like our Puros Indios cigars, [which have] the same wrapper” noted Puros Indios Vice President of Marketing Carlos Diez.

“We had been aging a quantity of new Corojo wrapper for two years and it gives us the opportunity to offer smokers a wider variety on flavor between the two brands.”

So, instead of the Ecuadorian-grown, Sumatra-seed wrapper so familiar to Cuba Aliados and Puros Indios smokers, a Corojo leaf grown in Honduras will be used to finish the familiar interior blend of Dominican and Nicaraguan-grown leaves and an Ecuadorian-grown, Sumatra-seed wrapper.

Nine shapes will be available in the line, with typical value pricing for which Puros Indios is well known, ranging from $3.50 to $8 per cigar.

The brand – which translates to “United Cuba” – dates back to at least the 1940s, when Rolando Reyes acquired the trademark and began making the brand. After more than two decades of production in Cuba, he fled the island, ending up in Union City, New Jersey where he began making the brand once again in his home. It entered national distribution in 1993 thanks to promotional efforts by the giant J-R Cigars, which dubbed the brand “without a doubt the finest quality cigar to come along in years!”

Control of the brand was re-acquired by Reyes from J-R in 2004 and fans of his 1990s Cuba Aliados blend as well as his entire Puros Indios line will enjoy passing judgement on Reyes’s newest blend.
~ Rich Perelman

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