halfwheel

Editorial: The Ten Questions for 2013

I think this might be my favorite article to write and publish. It takes a lot of time, but despite what my Twitter account might hint at, I do love the industry proper. There were a lot of things that happened in 2012, many of which aren’t so relevant as far as looking at things [...]

Press Release: Atlantic Cigar Releases First Annual Small Batch of La Mia Cigars in Time for Holidays

December 4, 2012 (Philadelphia, PA) — Atlantic Cigar Company will be releasing the first small batch of a new brand, La Mia, in the next few weeks. Blended along side the old Cuban masters in the Casa Fernandez Family, the La Mia makes use of tobacco from a special field with its namesake. The La [...]

News: Casa Fernandez to Add Two New Lines at IPCPR

Paul Palmer-Fernandez of Casa Fernandez has confirmed the company’s plans to add a pair of new lines to their portfolio, as well as a pair of new vitolas to their existing Miami Reserva line. All will be making their debut at the upcoming IPCPR convention and trade show in Orlando in August. The first new [...]

News: JFR 770 San Andrés & Other Updates From Paul Palmer

  Paul Palmer-Fernández, president of Casa Fernandez, recently sat down to talk about what’s new with the company as a whole, which includes the Danlí, Honduras-based Raíces Cubanas. Casa Fernandez/Tabacalera Tropical will be unveiling a Maduro version of its JFR 770 cigar, most likely in April. It will use a San Andrés Maduro wrapper as [...]

News: El Rey de los Habanos Lawsuit Settled

The legal battle over El Rey de los Habanos is over. Shortly before trial was set to begin, the long-rumored settlement has materialized. Details are unsurprisingly unavailable, but the following statement was obtained from the firm (Dorta y Ortega) representing Pepín García: This email is being written on behalf of Mr. Omar Ortega. This email [...]

News: Padilla IPCPR 2011

Given the State of the Brand: Padilla feature, I sort of wondered where Padilla sat with the host of new releases he had planned on having this year. Padilla gave some lofty release dates, many of which have come and gone, but that’s nothing but common practice for this industry. Well, today the confirmation from [...]

Review: Casa Fernandez Lancero

Say what? Another Raíces Cubanas Lancero. It’s the final one that will be featured as part of Lancero50, and perhaps the champion of the overlooked banner. While I’ve had my fair share of AGANORSA leaf, most of it has not been in the form of Casa Fernandez. Raíces is better known for its long list [...]

Weekly News (April 18, 2011)

Who said April was a slow cigar news month? After the jump is a massive news post with perhaps more release announcements than any other week besides IPCPR. I’m not sure what’s going on in the middle of May, but there sure are a lot of cigars coming out then. Anyways, after the jump, Viaje, [...]

State of the Brand: Padilla

No manufacturer has been more open than Ernesto Padilla of the company he founded, regarding new products, social media and customer interaction. Since the show when he first announced the idea regarding the Padilla Dominus, the past month with Padilla Legacies and his TwitPic account turning into a portfolio of test media – Ernesto has [...]

Review: Illusione Burn Churchill

For those of you that don’t know… About 2 weeks ago, I saw on Twitter that one of the Illusione reps had smoked an Illusione I had never heard of, dubbed “Burn”… A little cyber sleuthing turned up the fact that Dion (of Illusione Cigars) had developed a specific blend for Rocky Patel’s brand new [...]