halfwheel

Review: Tatuaje Cohete (2013)

Back in 2006, Tatuaje released three of what has now become dozens of single store releases, one of which was the Cohete, Spanish  for rocket. Exclusively sold at Tower Pipes & Cigars in Sacramento, Calif., the 4 x 50 Petite Robusto was limited to 50 boxes of 25 cigars for the first release and 100 [...]

Review: Kristoff 685 Woodlawn (Prerelease)

On March 29, Glen Case of Kristoff released the details of his new small batch cigar in an exclusive to halfwheel. The Kristoff 685 Woodlawn draws its name from the suburban Chicago house in which Case lived until he was 21 years old. While the Kristoff 685 Woodlawn won’t be formally released until the IPCPR [...]

Redux: Cheveta Habano Toro

In early 2011, Mark Just, owner of Tower Pipes and Cigars purchased the boutique Chaveta cigars, which is produced by Pinar del Rio. While the original blend features a Brazilian Bahia Maduro wrapper over Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers, there were 1,000 Toros produced in February of 2012 that replaced the Maduro wrapper with Habano one. [...]

Review: Padrón W. Curtis Draper 125th Anniversary Natural

In January, Washington D.C. retailer W. Curtis Draper concluded its 125th anniversary celebrations with the arrival of the fourth and final release in what was a year-long series of special cigars. The release was from Padrón and included two 6 x 46 cigars in special blends  The five cigars, in order of release, are as [...]

Redux: Viaje Exclusivo Tower Cigars 45th (2011)

Back in April of 2011, Viaje released what was then the seventh incarnation of the Exclusivo line to celebrate Tower Pipes & Cigars in Sacramento, CA 45th year in business. The box-pressed Viaje Exclusivo Tower Cigars 45th was released on April 5, 2011 with only 100 boxes of 20 cigars produced. The same vitola with the same blend [...]

Review: Room101 Big Delicious (Prerelease)

In December 2012, halfwheel broke the story of a new cigar coming from Room101 and Smoke Inn, a project called “Big Delicious” that takes its name from Matt Booth’s nickname for Abe Dababneh, proprietor of the South Florida retailer. The new cigar, the six installment in Smoke Inn’s MicroBlend Series™, made its first public appearance on [...]

Review: Nestor Miranda 70th Nicaragua

Back in October of 2012, Barry Stein, assistant director of marketing at Miami Cigar & Co. tweeted about a new project involving a limited release cigar made for Nestor Miranda’s 70th birthday on February 14, 2013. While almost nothing was known about it at the time, Stein put a photograph up on Instagram in November that showed [...]

Review: Fonseca Cubano Exclusivo Robusto (Prerelease)

Last month we got the news out of SAG Imports that it was releasing a new Fonseca line called the Cubano Exclusivo. The cigar was developed with the idea that they wanted to take the easily recognizable Fonseca branding and develop a cigar that breaks out of the expected smooth and mild Fonseca profile. The cigar [...]

Review: OpusX Football

Ask anyone who has the slightest knowledge about OpusX cigars which cigar they would most like to smoke, and chances are the Fuente Fuente OpusX Football will be extremely high on the list. Yes, it’s an OpusX-banded cigar that is shaped like a football. While normal Fuente Fuente OpusX releases are highly sought after by [...]

Redux: La Palina Goldie Laguito No. 2

In the summer of 2012, La Palina released the Goldie Laguito No. 2, a 6 x 38 Petit Lancero rolled by a single person, Maria Sierra, who was one of the first women trained to roll cigars in Cuba. Named after Goldie Drell Paley, who was the wife of the founder Sam Paley. Only 1,000 boxes of 10 [...]