halfwheel

Blog: Some Programming Notes

First, Happy New Year! Like last year, the first week of the year will be kind of special. We’ve long held the belief that no cigar in anyone’s humidor should be sacred. They are made to be smoked after all. There’s no better time to smoke those special cigars than holidays. Like last year, we are [...]

Introducing the halfwheel Newsletter

Next Monday, we will release the first edition of our newest offering, the halfwheel Newsletter. The product will be emailed the first Monday of each month and will feature a combination of new articles and a series of our favorite reviews and news stories from the prior month. It’s a clean product, and one that [...]

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 [...]

Announcement: Holiday Party at Elite Cigar Cafe

On Friday December 21, halfwheel’s editors (Brooks Whittington and Charlie Minato) and writer Brian Burt will be at Elite Cigar Cafe in Addison, TX for a get together we are commonly referring to as halfwheel’s Holiday Party Pt. II. The event will run from 7-11 PM and there will be some out of town guests [...]

Blog: Gary Sheffield Tour Dates Announced

Rocky Patel Cigar Co. has announced a series of in-store events that will feature former Major Leaguer Gary Sheffield, who will be appearing in support of the Rocky Patel HR 500 cigar that was released in mid-September and reviewed here. The cigar commemorates the slugger’s 500 home runs, making him one of just 25 players [...]

Announcement: Holiday Party at Tobacco Grove

On Friday December 7, halfwheel’s editors (Brooks Whittington and Charlie Minato) will be at Tobacco Grove in Maple Grove, MN for a get together we are commonly referring to as halfwheel’s Holiday Party Pt. 1. The event will run from 8-10 PM and it sounds like there will be other industry folk in attendance as [...]

(The) Contest Day 2: Oliva Special S Diadema (7 x 48)

It’s not the massive 9 x 52 Special S Diadema, but it’s still part of Oliva’s least known line. The Special S was introduced in 2006, before the introduction of Serie V, and was billed as Oliva’s top shelf cigar, and it was priced that way as well. A combination of things, including the Serie [...]

Blog: New Announcement Bar

We’ve recently started to have giveaways again on halfwheel and we’ve heard from a few regular readers they didn’t necessarily see that there was a contest being offered, so we’ve implemented a new menubar, which you can see in the screenshot below, for major announcements and contests. It will only run in 12-hour spans, and [...]

Blog: Why We Changed the RSS Feed

After more than a dozen e-mails, tweets and phone calls, it seemed like this might be necessary. A few weeks ago we changed the way halfwheel’s RSS feed displays within readers — more specifically — rather than showing a full post with pictures, the RSS feed only displays a short preview, usually less than 100 [...]

Blog: On Our Macklemore Obsession & Contest

If you follow Patrick Lagreid and/or me on Twitter, you might have noticed a reference to Seattle rapper Macklemore, a few times, particularly from yours truly. Given there’s actually been a reference to it on halfwheel proper, it’s probably worth some explanation. My interest is pretty simple, I really enjoy the music from Ben Haggerty [...]