IPCPR 2012: Tatuaje & L’Atelier Imports

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Pete Johnson sat down with halfwheel and talked a lot, and about all sorts of things—including the upcoming 10 year anniversary of Tatuaje. He also talked about his new company, L’Atelier Imports, which made its national debut at IPCPR 2012 after a bit of a preview in the form of Surrogates at New Havana Cigars [...]

Weekly News (March 26, 2012)

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Editor’s Note: Today is a slightly different note. Legendary sports historian Bert Sugar passed away yesterday at 75. Bert was a noted boxing historian and as a fan of boxing, his insight and memory was remarkable. Bert was also a cigar smoker, a noted cigar smoker. Need proof? Every picture of him on the first [...]

Review: Tatuaje Cojonu 2012 Reserva (Prerelease)

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Tomorrow, Pete Johnson will launch the Tatuaje Cojonu 2012 at Casa de Montecristo in Chicago. It will be the sixth iteration of one of the original Tatuaje series and the first time Johnson will use a book style packaging for any release. There are a total of three versions of the 2012 release (Capa Especial, [...]

Weekly News (February 20, 2012)

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Editor’s Note: This is the week of ProCigar 2012, and as such, much of the news will likely be about the Dominican Republic. Quesada will formally open their new factory (and perhaps give it a new name) and announce the next size of Q d’etat. It sounds like things will be quiet at La Aurora [...]

Review: Tatuaje Cojonu 2012 Capa Especial (Prerelease)

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For those of you that don’t know… In 2003, Tatuaje released it’s first cigar under the Cojonu (pronounced Co-ho-nu) banner, which is short for Cojonudo, Cuban slang for ballsy, obviously referring to the strength of the blend. The Cojonu releases are usually double banded (more on that below) with a regular brown label Tatuaje band on [...]

Weekly News (October 31, 2011)

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Editor’s Note: Happy Halloween. It’s another relatively slow week of cigar news. It will be like this going forward for most of the rest of the year due to a variety of push and pull factors. I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of groundbreaking information leaking in the coming months, but then again surprises are [...]

Weekly News (September 5, 2011)

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Editor’s Note: I’ve made a concerted effort not to speculate on the outcome of Fernandez v. García et al (i.e. the El Rey de los Habanos lawsuit) for a few reasons, but it seems the rumormill has continued to grind and perhaps now has reached a moment that deserves critique. While speculation about a settlement, [...]