halfwheel

Redux: OpusX ForbiddenX 13 Nacimiento 1912

Midway through December of 2011, select Fuente retailers received a surprise release of a brand new ForbiddenX blend to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Arturo Fuente brand. Each box contained 13 cigars, and all had a secondary band with the number 13 inside a clock face on it. Fuente recently shipped a smaller second batch to retailers in [...]

Review: Headley Grange Estupendos (Prerelease)

Way back in February of this year murmurs started flying about the followup to Crowned Heads’ popular debut, Four Kicks. Jon Huber announced the cigar, which was then known as “Project HG”  in an email and gave a few details about the release—which he also announced would be available for the first time at the [...]

Review: Sosa Classic 6 x 60 Natural (Prerelease)

Sosa Cigars recently announced it was jumping on the large ring gauge bandwagon by releasing a 6 x 60 Gordo vitola in its Classic line. Blended by Juan B. Sosa, all of the tobacco for the Sosa Classic line is aged for a minimum of three years, and is rolled at Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia Factory [...]

Redux: La Aurora 107 Salomon

Back in January, I reviewed the La Aurora 107 Puro Vintage, which at the time was a cigar that was only available at Buckhead Cigar Club’s tweet-up in December of 2011. However, Miami Cigar & Co. had just announced it would be making 1,000 boxes of the blend, which were released last month. While the size [...]

Review: E.P. Carrillo INCH No. 64 Natural (Prerelease)

To borrow a line from Dave Niehaus, the former announcer for the Seattle Mariners, it just continues. Except in this case, it’s not the Mariners’ magical season of 1995, it’s the growing trend of large ring gauge cigars. The new E.P. Carrillo INCH line joins the super size cigar party with a trio of vitolas all [...]

Review: Quesada Jalapa Belicoso

At the 2011 ProCigar festival in the Dominican Republic, the Quesada family showed off its newest creation—the Quesada Selección España. As implied by the name, the cigar was created specifically for the Spanish market and actually made to compete alongside offerings from Habanos S.A. I described the basics last year: In February of this past [...]

Redux: Coronado Maduro Corona Especial

Released way back in April of 2009, the Coronado by La Flor Maduro Corona Especial never really caught on with consumers. Intended as an experiment of sorts, this release is the exact same blend as the regular Coronado by La Flor, with a Maduro wrapper from Ecuador replacing the Nicaraguan rosado wrapper on the original blend. Only 83 [...]

Review: Viva Republica Rapture Harasha (Prerelease)

Tucked inside the La Aurora booth at IPCPR 2012 will be a new brand, Viva Republica. The company is owned by Jason Holly and over the last few years he has been working on bringing Viva Republica to life—something that will come to fruition at IPCPR. Charlie broke the news on most the details last [...]

Review: Litto Gomez Diez Small Batch No. 4 Oscuro

As the tidal wave of buzz about new releases for the IPCPR 2012 trade show was steadily building, La Flor Dominicana released, somewhat quietly, a new take on the Litto Gomez Diez Small Batch No. 4, an oscuro version. Oscuro, which simply means dark, is a word in the cigar industry that doesn’t have the [...]

Redux: La Aurora 107 Lancero

About two years ago, myself and others went to Twitter to convince Guillermo León and José Blanco that the popular La Aurora 107 blend needed to be made in a Lancero. Eventually, after some persistence and retailer commitments, the La Aurora 107 Lancero came to life. Oddly, I chronicled the history in an editorial, which [...]