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CUBA TURNS ITS BACK ON WORLD; WASHINGTON TURNS ITS BACK ON CUBA |
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 Plus: All the Liberties from Camacho
Los Angeles, July 4 – As the U.S. celebrates Independence Day, Cuba is sailing on an independent course once again . . . away from capitalism.
Business reports from Havana indicate that the government has drastically cut back or simply ended dozens of joint-venture agreements and has scaled back its economic outreach program. It is reasserting control of a centralized economy and emphasizing trade with a small number of partners including Venezuela and China in ways which hark back to its relationship with the Soviet Union in the 1960s through the 1980s.
Chicago Tribune correspondent Gary Marx quoted one business executive last week who characterized the current situation by noting “the Cuban market is not open for foreign investment except in very specific areas, and the Cubans only want to deal now with large and important foreign firms.”
One of those is, of course, Altadis, which owns half of the Habanos S.A. distribution firm for Havana cigars. Given the importance of cigars to Cuba’s hard currency earnings, it’s hard to imagine some sort of downturn in that relationship, but Cuban president Fidel Castro is anything but predictable.
Equally unpredictable is the U.S. Congress, which has voted year after year to open relations with Havana, but slammed down three legislative attempts to ease sanctions last week:
• The U.S. House of Representatives voted 250-169 against an amendment by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-New York) to a Treasury Department funding bill (H.R. 3058) to eliminate funding for all implementation efforts of the economic embargo against Cuba.
• The House voted 211-208 against another amendment to H.R. 3058, introduced by Rep. Jim Davis (D-Florida), to eliminate funds used to prevent family travel to Cuba.
The U.S. also voted down a similar proposal last week.
• The House also voted 233-187against a third amendment to the same bill, introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California), to eliminate funding to enforce regulations preventing travel to Cuba by academic institutions.
The defeat of all three amendments indicates that change in the U.S.-Cuban relationship will probably change only after Castro’s status changes from alive to dead.
Lots of Liberty from Camacho:
Our mention of the new 2005-edition Camacho Liberty brought questions about the Liberty project. How many? When did it start? We got the answers from the creator of the series, Christian Eiroa of Caribe Imported Cigars:
• The original Camacho Liberty debuted in July (of course) of 2002 and offered a powerful but subtle taste using aged tobaccos, all grown in Honduras. Only 500 boxes of 50 cigars each were made (25,000 cigars in all) with 5,000 cigars of five shapes:
> Churchill (7 inches by 48 ring gauge);
> Corona (5 1/2 x 44);
> Rothschild (5 x 50);
> Toro (6 x 50) and
> Torpedo (7 x 54).
• In 2003, a one-size Camacho Liberty was introduced, a giant 8-inch by 54-ring torpedo. It had a Honduran-grown wrapper and binder and used Honduran filler leaves, but also included a little pre-embargo Cuban leaf which was already in the Tabacos Rancho Jamastran warehouse. It was acquired when the company acquired the leaf held by the DWG Cigar Company in the 1970s.
The cigar was a sensation and the 20,000 individually-coffined sticks sold quickly and are avidly collected today.
• Now a celebrated marque, the 2004 Liberty was again a Honduran puro, expanded to two sizes:
> The 11/18, a 6-inch by 56-ring perfecto, offered in individual coffins in boxes of 20, and
> Amendment XII, issued for the 2004 Presidential Election season, an 8-inch by 54-ring torpedo, also in single coffins and boxes of 20.
A total of 60,000 cigars were produced: 30,000 of both the 11/18 and the Amendment XII.
• As we reported last week, the 2005 Liberty is now available. Only 40,000 were made, this time with a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, Honduran binder and Honduran and pre-embargo Cuban filler in the 11/18 size in individual coffins and chests of 20.
With the Liberty, Caribe is a member of a small list of brands which have shown a commitment to the limited-edition mark. With four such cigars in the last four years, only Avo, Davidoff and Cigars by Santa Clara’s La Escepcion series can claim as much experience.
If you’re looking for the Liberty – past or present – you’ll have to find a top-end Camacho dealer as distribution is also limited to Caribe’s top retailers. Good luck!
~ Rich Perelman
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