halfwheel

News: BOTL.org Small Batch Releases Return From Drew Estate & Pinar Del Rio

The BOTL.org forum will see both of its limited release cigars return beginning later this month. On Sunday, it was announced the Pinar Del Rio BOTL.org Small Batch 2010 would be returning for a 2013 edition. The blend and size are said to stay the same as the original release with 200 numbered boxes of [...]

Review: Joya de Nicaragua CyB Lancero Fino (Prerelease)

There are a lot of best of/top cigars lists that appear at the end and beginning of each calendar year, I’d like to think one serves as a model a bit more than any other, The Consensus. It’s a list we’ve curated for the past two years, but an idea tried hundreds of times over in [...]

Weekly News (April 8, 2013)

Editor’s Note: The following is the letter from the editors from the April newsletter, it’s worth repeating. This isn’t a warning and our policies aren’t changing. This is a plea, a plea for a bit more consideration. We pride ourselves on running a website that can present two sides to a conservation. We do not [...]

Press Release: Drew Estate Unveils “Kentucky Fire Cured” Line Extension to My Uzi Weighs a Ton

April 2, 2013 (Miami, Fla.) — Drew Estate Inc. announced today the impending release of Kentucky Fire Cured Cigars, an extension to the MUWAT brand also to be produced at the Joya de Nicaragua factory. In development for over 2.5 years, this extension to the popular MUWAT line of premium cigars was inspired during a [...]

Weekly News (March 25, 2013)

Editor’s Note: Yes, for the first time since in almost three years, there was no Weekly News, three times. A combination of technical and human error combined with further misjudgment led to the absence of the Monday fixture, but alas, it’s back. Things are hectic at halfwheel, and the last time this column was published, [...]

News: Nicaragua’s Jalapa Region Battles Paratrioza Bacteria, Again

Early last year, Nicaragua’s near flawless rise to the top of the cigar world experienced arguably its largest problem in the last decade and a half. In the northwestern region of Jalapa, the part of the country that borders Honduras—tobacco plants were dying midway through the season with the undersides of the leaves ravaged in [...]

Review: Liga Privada Único Serie UF-13 Dark (Prerelease)

It’s been a long wait, but Drew Estate is finally ready for the national release of perhaps its most anticipated Liga Privada ever, the UF-13 Dark. Way back in early 2011, I smoked the first of what would end up being quite a few reiterations of a blend that Liga Privada was working on, dubbed [...]

Weekly News (January 28, 2012)

Editor’s Note: This week, the 2013 list of new releases will be updated, it’s a task and one that we’ve been a bit relaxed on launching, but by Friday a pretty good synopsis of what we know about will be out. It’s been a quiet January in terms of shipped releases, more so than the [...]

News: Liga Privada UF-13 Dark Slated for Late March

The details for Drew Estate’s highly-anticipated Liga Privada Único Serie UF-13 Dark are now finalized. As we noted last September, the UF-13, a stronger Liga Privada previously reserved for events and other special purposes, is on track for a release this spring.  While the cigar itself hasn’t changed since that article, the name now reads, [...]

News: Alec Bradley Renaming Dirty Hooligan Project

The recently announced Alec Bradley Black Market Dirty Hooligan cigar is getting a new name just weeks before its March 5th release date, as the original name used a word that has become increasingly pre-empted by another manufacturer. Now known as the Alec Bradley Black Market Filthy Hooligan, the name was changed as a “gesture [...]