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FUN AND GAMES IN FUENTE-LAND

Plus: how about a Venezuelan cigar?

Los Angeles, November 13 – “I started the site originally because I was rather confused at the vast array of rare cigars that Fuente put out. I decided that it would be useful to create a reference that chronicled them.”

What started as a hobby for Ambrosia Software President Andrew Welch in 2003 has turned into one of the most amazing cigar sites on the Internet. It can bring tears to a smoker’s eyes.

The site is Vitolas.net, an ongoing chronicle into the wonderful and weird world of not only the Tabacalera A. Fuente, but also some strange cigar-making at other high-end manufacturers.

There are photo albums on rare cigars, mostly Fuente-made brands, but also from other places; a section which will eventually be filled with retail price lists for the high-end brands, and a section with albums of Fuente factory tours and other odds and ends.

The rare-cigars album is the biggest treat as you are amazed by what talented torcedors can accomplish. You can see “achievements” in cigar-making that include cigars shaped like a baseball bat, like a football (pictured above; courtesy Andrew Welch), a pipe, a Saguaro Cactus, cigars with four wrappers intertwined in stripes, cigars with strange, fanned heads and so on.

It’s also a great guide into the Fuente’s experimentation with various shapes and wrappers for the Opus X line. There isn’t anything they won’t try and Welch has documented more than 100 styles that will probably never see production. But his work will help to deflate the rumor mill.

There are opportunities to add your own comments if you desire and the site is a continuing work in progress. But in this Thanksgiving season, here’s a thanks to Welch for his contribution to helping all of us through the Opus X maze.

Venezuela fired up over cigars:
“Why should Venezuela be known for oil and pretty Miss Worlds but not for a good cigar,” asks Miguel Patino, President of Bermudez Tobacco in an interview with Reuters.

Patino isn’t shy about proclaiming the quality of his cigars, or of Venezuelan tobacco. “Cuban tobacco is a myth to me,” he told reporter Christian Oliver. “There are three, four or five very goods brands but the other 30 or 40 are very bad or mediocre. We have some tobaccos which can compete with the good ones.” Oh, boy.

Venezuelan cigars have never been much of a force on the U.S. market. During the Cigar Boom of the mid-to-late 1990s, brands such as Crispin Patiño, Macuro and Puro Venezuelano made some impact, but are far down the list of preferred cigars for American smokers. The Reuters report noted that Patino’s factory in the city of Cumana sells only about 4,000 boxes a year (100,000 cigars), mostly in Latin America, but also in Germany and Spain.

American attorney Michael DeLisa is planning an invasion of the U.S. cigar market with a new factory on the island of Margarita, creating a cigar of all-Venezuelan tobacco. He was successful in sales during the Cigar Boom, but is now looking for the right time to launch his Don Sebastian brand in Miami. His main effort in developing a blend for export is to increase the power of his cigars to meet the current taste of American smokers. “The palate here is very much lighter,” he told Reuters. “It does not match our export markets.”

(Sharp readers will remember that General Cigar already owns the trademark for Don Sebastian for its handmade line of value-priced cigars which are generally sold alongside machine-made brands at convenience stores, drugstores and truck stops. If DeLisa plans to sell his cigars in the U.S., he will undoubtedly have to find another name.)

The Reuters report also noted an amazing ritual of smokers in rural Venezuela, of smoking cigars with the lit end in the mouth! Bleecchh! This practice is variously reported as having to do with not getting the ash on one’s clothing or having to do with staving off hunger or witches. Neither Patino or DeLisa foresee exporting that custom along with their cigars in the future.

The Pain in Spain:
Spanish smokers are not happy.

The Spanish government, continuing its drive to reduce smoking – mostly of cigarettes – imposed its fifth increase in the tobacco tax since September 2005. As previous tax increases drove smokers to cheaper and cheaper brands of cigarettes and some of the tax was simply absorbed by the cigarette makers, the latest tax seeks to lift the cost of even the lowest-priced cigarettes on the market.

The new levy will increase the minimum pack price in Spain from 1.95 Euro to at least 2.11 Euro (approximately $2.50 to $2.71). This will decrease smoking?

“I hope this measure encourages many people to give up smoking,” said Spanish Vice President Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, who noted that the current pricing of cigarettes was “cheaper than desirable from a health perspective.”

The government may continue to increase taxes if manufacturers continue to absorb the taxes and keep prices low. Spain’s smoking ban – which took effect on January 1 of this year – has been implemented with only light resistance, but also with little enforcement and is, in some areas, largely irrelevant. This is especially because restaurants or bars of 100 sq. meters (1,076 sq. ft.) or less have the choice whether to allow smoking or not. Most do and the losers are simply larger restaurants or hotels, which have seen a transfer of at least some of their coffee and dessert business to these locations. Another governmental effort goes up in smoke!
~ Rich Perelman

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