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Charlie Minato

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About the author

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.

2017 Awards: Top 25

We reviewed nearly 300 cigars in 2017. As is often the case with halfwheel, it’s a wide range of items from the biggest releases of…

Watch The Top 25 Cigars Live Show (2 P.M. CST)

That’s right, we’ll be unveiling our Top 25 cigars for 2017 live, on Facebook. In addition to unveiling our list, we’ll be giving away three…

2012 by Oscar Barber Pole

We seem to be reviewing more and more barber pole cigars. And while none of them are quite normal, the 2012 by Oscar version is a…

Altadis Sues Figaro Cigars Over Fleur-de-lis Use

Altadis U.S.A., one of the largest cigar brands, has sued Figaro Cigars 1943 LLC, a company whose website lists a total of seven authorized retailers….

2017 Awards: Company of the Year

For the most part, this was not a year of bold risks, massive capital expenditures or complete reboots. Instead, thanks to reasons FDA-related and not,…

Gurkha Cancels Plans to Acquire American Caribbean Cigars Factory

Gurkha’s planned acquisition of American Caribbean Cigars is no more. Last May, the company announced plans to acquire the Estelí, Nicaragua-based factory that is responsible…

2017 Awards: Factory of the Year

90. 92. 89. 91. 87. 87. 91. 88. 92. 90. Those are the scores for new cigars from the Cigars Davidoff factory in 2017, an…

Rich Krutick Promoted to VP of Marketing & Retail for Davidoff

Rich Krutick has been promoted to Davidoff of Geneva USA’s vp of marketing and retail. Krutick will continue to oversee the marketing efforts for the…

Muestra de Saka Unicorn Shipping

It’s $100. Less than a month after publicly teasing that he may or may not release the cigar, Steve Saka is in fact releasing his…

Rocky Patel Ships Tabaquero Culebra

There is a new Tabaquero by Hamlet Paredes vitola, though it may look a bit familiar. The company is now shipping the Tabaquero in a…

A Note About New Company of the Year

There will not be an award for new company of the year in 2017, at least not from this site. We’ve given the award each…