halfwheel

News: Tatuaje Noellas & Regios Reservas Near Release

Two famed Tatuaje releases are nearing respective rereleases as part of Pete Johnson’s 10th anniversary. The Havana Cellars head told halfwheel both are expected to see 2000-box shipments in “March/April and then in November.” The confirmation follows an e-mail from New Havana Cigars’ Dan Welsh, who is also involved with Johnson in L’Atelier Imports, hinting [...]

News: Four New Cigars from L’Atelier Imports

It will be a busy IPCPR trade show for Pete Johnson, as the owner of Tatuaje and Havana Cellars will have several new lines debuting as well as a new company formed under his watch. Johnson will be overseeing L’Atelier Imports, which will be based out of Miami and run by a three-man team of [...]

Redux: Tatuaje NHC Selección Limitada Capa Especial

Almost one year ago, I wrote a review about the almost unknown Tatuaje NHC Capa Especial,  a then yet-to-be-released version of the popular single store blend sold by Dan Welsh over at New Havana Cigars with a Sumatra wrapper. In fact, I loved it so much, it made my the final Top Ten list for [...]

Weekly News (June 18, 2012)

Editor’s Note: It will be a busy week at halfwheel and likely busy up until the trade show. I’m not sure if it’s entirely necessary. There’s a chicken and egg problem regarding new releases that runs rampant through the industry. There’s not enough space in most retail humidors because of a flood of new releases, [...]

News: NHC Selección Limitada Capa Especial Returns

The NHC Selección Limitada Capa Especial is back at New Havana Cigars for its second run, this time “less than 250 boxes” — a significant increase from the original allotment of just over 70 last summer. The Capa Especial takes the NHC Selección Limitada blend, what is commonly known as Tatuaje’s Brown Label blend in [...]

News: MUWAT Bait Fish Goes National

Drew Estate’s MUWAT EF Bait Fish is set to see national distribution after spending over five months as an exclusive to Dan Welsh’s New Havana Cigars. MUWAT EF, short for My Uzi Weighs a Ton Extra Fuerte, is a slightly stronger version of Drew Estate’s 60 RG line made at Tabacos Joya de Nicaragua S.A., [...]

Review: Tatuaje Miami Tan FF

In November of 2009, Pete Johnson shipped Dan Welsh of New Havana Cigars fame a batch of 6 3/4 x 49 Torpedoes that were originally slated to be the Tatuaje Cojonu 2009, which measures at 6 3/4 x 48. The slightly more than 2,000 cigars were eventually labeled Tatuaje Miami FF starting the somewhat sporadic [...]

Weekly News (March 12, 2012)

Editor’s Note: March is in full swing. As has been mentioned a few times here before, this should be no surprise. In halfwheel news, we would like to welcome Prometheus as our newest sponsor. For the next few days, Brook and I will be meeting at the super secret halfwheel offices in Dallas, before I [...]

Review: Illusione MKULTRA

In 2006, Dion Giolito decided to release limited quantities of a cigar that he deemed had not met the standards he had set for his Illusione brand. The cigar was a stronger version of his ~mk~ Corona that was part of The Original Document. Dubbed, MKULTRA, Dion once again turned to his clichés for naming. [...]

The Consensus: 2011 Awards

For the 2010 rendition of this concept, click here to see Brian Hewitt’s work. Before anyone starts, I started this long before Bill Berris posted his rendition of this a few days at Cigar Snapshot. (Bill’s serves as a interesting sample of this, although there are noticeable differences beyond population size.) The concept was simple, [...]