 Plus: want a cigar made with 1940s Cuban tobacco?
Los Angeles, August 8 – The famed Italian instrument maker Antoni Stradivari created about 1,100 instruments over his lifetime and for generations after his death in 1737, his work became synonymous with quality.
His endless attention to detail separated his violins, guitars, mandolins and cellos from all others. General Cigar has tried to put the same effort behind its newest cigar brand, the Stradivarius de los Maestros.
Like its namesake, this is a cigar that required painstaking work over more than five years. The original idea for the brand came from General Cigar’s late marketing manager Bill Roethel.
The execution proved more difficult. Because General grows its own Connecticut Shade wrapper and now-President Daniel Nunez had the foresight to put away as many as 100 bales of each year’s crop since the nearly 1990s, a production line of cigars which has 15-year-aged wrapper is now possible.
By blending this old wrapper with a Dominican-grown binder and Dominican, Mexican and Nicaraguan filler leaves, a cigar of mild-to-medium strength but with striking flavor and complexity has been created in a total of about 100,000 cigars from the 1992 wrapper-year crop.
There are three shapes: Robusto Major (5 1/2 inches by 49 ring); Lonsdale (6 1/2 x 43) and Churchill (7 1/2 x 49), each presented in a wax-sealed coffin inside boxes of 10. Shipments to retailers will begin in October.
The pricing is clearly in the Stradivarius class: $30 each for the Lonsdale and $32 each for the Robusto Major and Churchill! As General’s Vice President of Marketing Cooper Gardiner noted, “it’s not for everyone.” But, as with musicians and collectors, it may be for those who will be satisfied with nothing less than a Stradivarius.
Looking back at La Gloria Cubana’s Serie R:
Ernesto Perez-Carrillo’s La Gloria Cubana Serie R has been a hit since debuted in 1999 and the Serie R Limitada have been sought-after cigars since the first edition was released in 2003.
Now the entire Serie R Limitada collection is being offered in a one-time only package, including the previously uncirculated 2002 version!
Called the Serie R Limitada Retrospectivo, the collection includes 100 cigars with 20 from each year from 2002-2006, with ten each with natural and maduro wrappers. It’s housed in a spectacular seven-drawer humidor with a beveled-glass door and a flip-top storage compartment that also reveals the first-ever La Gloria Cubana-themed accessories: a massive ashtray, cutter and table lighter.
Only 250 humidors will be made and the price is $2,500. They’ll be available in November.
A blast from the past:
The unique program at the 65-acre Tabacos de la Cordillera in Costa Rica of creating new cigars from authentic, pure Cuban seeds from the 1940s and 1950s has hit full speed with the introduction of three new lines: Vuelta Abajo 1940, Pinar del Rio 1941 and Artemisa 1944.
John Vogel, who collected these seeds over decades of work in the tobacco industry, has now produced three full lines of cigars, each using only a specific seed set to grow wrapper, binder and filler leaf in Costa Rica. The result is the mild-bodied Artemisa, medium-bodied Vuelta Abajo 1940 and the full-bodied Pinar del Rio 1941.
All three blends are offered in four standard sizes: Churchill (7 x 52), Corona (6 1/4 x 44), Robusto (5 x 50) and Toro (6 x 52). They come in boxes of 25 or in packs of five (six for the Corona) with suggested retail prices from $11.40 to $11.85 before local tobacco taxes.
More Joya de Nicaragua:
The already-popular Joya de Nicaragua was significantly expanded here with the introduction of the new Serie C, offering medium-to-full-bodied taste in a new style.
Rather than using all Nicaraguan-grown leaf, as is the case for the Joya de Nicaragua, Antano 1970 and Celebracion lines, the Serie C uses Nicaraguan-grown binder and filler leaves in concert with Ecuadorian-grown, Connecticut-seed wrapper for a very flavorful cigar that’s also extremely smooth. And at $4.55 to $6.75 each in sizes including a Belicoso (6 x 54), Toro (6 x 50, Robusto (5 x 52) and Corona Gorda (5 1/4 x 46), it’s also a smooth fit for the wallet. All four sizes are offered in boxes of 20.
Good to go whenever you are:
The folks from Flor de Jardin, who sell a wild brand called Smokin’ Toad, want you to buy their cigars, but recognize you might not be able to smoke them for a while.
So they’ve created a unique two-pack of the Toad (6 x 50) and the Tadpole (5 x 38) shrink-wrapped for freshness with a Humidipak humidification device included inside. This will not only keep your cigars safe until you need them, but will keep the cigars moist and ready for smoking for up to two years!
However, the Flor de Jardin folks hope you won’t wait that long to try them . . .
ZippoBLU lights up:
Multiple distributors are showcasing the new ZippoBLU butane lighter series here at the RTDA show and it’s met with considerable interest. The suggested retail prices, unavailable until now, are quite reasonable. There are 12 designs in chrome and gold finishes, ranging from about $48 for the understated “Dusted Chrome” model to about $70 for the “Golden Hologram” or the “Gold Tuxedo.”
The 75th RTDA, marked by concern over the possible federal tax increases at the same time as some pretty wild parties took place, closes tomorrow.
~ Rich Perelman
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