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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Redux: Por Larrañaga Magnifico (ER UK 2007)

In 2007, before people started getting a bit jaded on the whole Edición Regional program, Habanos S.A. released the Por Larrañaga Magnifico, a regional release for the U.K.  The vitola is an almost exact replica, only 2mm shorter, of the of the famous Por Larrañaga Magnum, which is thought by some to be one the greatest cigars ever made until [...]

Redux: My Father El Picador

Almost exactly two years ago, I reviewed on of My Father’s smallest vitolas, the El Picador, a custom size and blend made for Empire Cigars in North Carolina. The owner of the store, Hal Rubin, asked José “Don Pepín” García to roll him a limited number of cigars in the Cheroot vitola for his store alone, [...]

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 [...]

Redux: Mercer Pinar Del Río Pirámides

Back at the end of 2010, it came to my attention that there were some custom-rolled Cuban cigars being sold by Mercer Cigars out of Mexico. There were originally three different vitolas available: Cañonazos, Pirámides and Sublime, although there have been rumors of other sizes being rolled since then in the same blends. There was quite [...]

Redux: Joya de Nicaragua Cabinetta Serie No.13

I still believe the Joya de Nicaragua Cabinetta Serie No. 13 (Lancero) was one of the quietest releases of 2010. When I reviewed last June as part of Lancero50 — most had never heard of the fifth size of Cabinetta, since then, things have changed a bit. Actually a lot has changed. Here’s what I [...]

Redux: Oliva Serie V Maduro Especial (2011)

Since 2008, Oliva as released an incarnation of the Oliva Serie V Maduro Especial. Each year has seen a different size for the the limited release, but the 2011 version had a first: it was the first year that a Torpedo vitola was not used. However, like the 2010 version, it used a San Andrés Maduro [...]