Moya & Ruiz La Jugada Habano to Debut at IPCPR 2013

Danny Moya and Nelson Ruiz’s sophomore release will debut at the 2013 IPCPR trade show and convention next month. The duo will use a different wrapper over the company’s La Jugada filler blend for its next release, which will debut at the mid-July annual convention in Las Vegas, Nev. The duo confirmed the release date last night on Cigar Federation’s CigarChat.

“It’s the same as the first release, only difference is that it’s not going to have the Mexican San Andrés wrapper,” said Danny Moya to halfwheel. “It’s going to have the Ecuadorian Habano wrapper.”

The cigars are identical in both vitola (four total sizes) and filler blend (Nicaraguan), but will ultimately be priced lower than the La Jugada Prieto’s $7.00-$9.00 price point because of the difference in cost of the wrapper. They are once again made at Erik Espinosa’s Estelí, Nicaragua-based La Zona factory.

The Habano version of the cigar was actually planned to originally launch alongside the San Andrés release, but the company decided to wait on the release because they felt the cigars weren’t ready. We first wrote about both releases last year when the company still referred to the cigars as Flor de Estelí. The pair were forced to change the name to La Jugada because of trademark issues.

“It’s a little bit less spicy, little bit more of a smother creamy taste,” said Moya. “Erik (Espinosa) says it’s a medium-to-full, I find it to be a medium, Nelson (Ruiz) says it’s medium-to-full.”

The bands will read “Habano” instead of “Prieto” and the 20-count boxes will be dark green instead of black.

Moya says the cigars are now aging and will ship immediately after the trade show. It will be the only new release for the company at this year’s IPCPR show.

Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.