Weekly News (January 3, 2010)

I hope everyone has recovered from what hopefully was a fun and safe new years… (Awkward transition) And now the news…

Pete Johnson tweeted about smoking a Black Label Petite Lancero, it will be a retailer exclusive stick, unsure about price and release date – although soon is what the birdies are saying. Yesterday I reviewed the Illusione ~888~ Candela and dropped a bit of news per se, the cigar is now part of the regular Illusione line and should be popping up in retailers this week. That all being said, keeping them in stock might be a problem, even though they aren’t a limited release. Jameson released their new bundle line, the Southbound Series. Gary Arzt revealed two new cigars, Arsen (made for Arsen Gasparyan by Augusto Reyes) and an extension to My Father Cigars’ La Reloba line, featuring a San Andreas wrapper, a tobacco Pepin will be using a lot of now. Pricing and sizes for the unbanded Nosotros have been revealed from at least one of the retailers.

It’s been a while since legal news has made it onto this site, but here’s one that made major news. Cubatabaco is suing Ismail Houmani who owns La Casa De La Habana stores in Michigan, they claim that the name is too similar to La Casa del Habano, the official stores of Habanos S.A.

Gran Habano sent a press release outlining a lot of their plans for 2011, you can find that after the jump.

Gran Habano’s Opium Den

Miami, Fl., December 31, 2010 – As the year comes to a close, we at Gran Habano hope that you and your loved ones had the happiest of holidays and wish everyone a wonderful and fulfilling New Year.

We take great pride in introducing our first true Maduro cigar in 2010 that uses the finest San Andres wrapper, binder and creative mix of Nicaraguan and Panamanian fillers. The Azteca, which is currently being offered in 3 sizes, has been very well received by our great cigar smoking community.

Many of you may already know that we also ended the 2010 year by removing many great cigars from our portfolio such as the 3SLS, Cabinet and various G.A.R. lines. While it was a difficult decision to make, it was one that was made with great anticipation knowing the new cigar lines will raise the bar on anything we have previously created.

Starting off the new year will be our very refined Gran Reserva #3 that is created with prime (and aged) Nicaraguan and Colombian tobaccos. The decade old components come from our Nicaraguan (La Santa Cruz) and Colombian (La Joya del Valle) farms. Smoking the Gran Reserva #3 will give you an immediate sense of the effort and detail that went into this amazing product and truly show you where we plan to take our loyal supporters in 2011. The Gran Reserva #3 has started distribution (a current list of retailers is available on GHCigars.com) and should reach all of our retailers by the second week of January.

In support of the Gran Reserva, and our continued push for a higher standard, Gran Habano will be unveiling a number of surprises for 2011. Perhaps the most notable will be our new factory that opens on “Calle Ocho”, 8th street, in the Little Havana district of Miami. This factory, named La Joya del Valle, will act as our home for the STK program, allowing us to operate in a boutique fashion with rare and limited materials. G.A.R. will also be making a bold statement through a George Rico project that has been in development for years – OPIUM. La Joya del Valle will also give the power back to the cigar smoking community with a program called G.A.R. Deli. In short – this program will allow you, as a master blender, to make your own cigar and utilize our rollers to finish the process for you.

These are just some of the fun and exciting ventures that will go live in 2011. Again, we would like to thank everyone for the great support you have provided us in the years past and we look forward on continuing our great partnership in the years to come.

About Gran Habano Cigars
Gran Habano Cigars was founded in 1995 by Guillermo Rico and his son George Rico. Using only the best raw materials on earth, Gran Habano begins the growing process with Habano and Corojo seeds which are grown on company-owned farms in Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The process comes to fruition at our boutique factory, which focuses on quality control and high-end productivity making it one of the top cigar companies in the world.

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.