First, I hope you enjoyed the holidays, even if you aren’t religious and don’t celebrate Boxing Day; now let’s see if I can get through the news without any false reporting on Dylan Austin stories… Cuba increased its export of machine made cigars, no word on premium handmades. Speaking of Cuba, Habanos announced the La Gloria Cubana Inmensos. Litto Gomez announced that the La Flor Dominicana will be raising its prices 2.5%, I’m still trying to figure out if it’s 2.5% wholesale or MSRP, the former would likely represent a 5% increase to consumers. Dion Giolito tweeted that he was smoking the latest batch of MKULTRAs, the limited version of his popular Corona. Pete Johnson tweeted that he had been smoking a Black Label Petite Lancero prototype, no word on if that will ever see production. PuffingCigars posted pictures of the Gran Habano Gran Reserva #3, a cigar that should be out early in 2011. Xikar announced new UPC coding for all of their products. Hammer & Sickles Berlin Wall has been delayed until March. A fire in a Camacho Connecticut wrapper barn destroyed some wrappers, word is it won’t have any affect on production. CRA recognized Rudolph Giullani for something or other.

By the way, a bit of site news – we are finally featured on Alltop.
Avatar photo

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.