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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.

Weekly News (February 7, 2011)

  There’s a much different style to the news, okay sort of… A few stories are still in paragraph form, but most will be in…

State of the Brand: My Father Cigars

For the meantime, I guess we can make this a weekly segment? While Raíces Cubanas is arguably (at least for me), the hottest factory of…

In Memoriam: Sal Fontana

Last week, I spoke to Israel Markevitz, of Uptown Cigar Co. We spoke about a lot of things, he had mentioned that he had recently…

Viaje Tower Cigars 45th Anniversary Announced

After speaking with Mark Just of Tower Cigars, it seemed time to put the info for the newest Viaje LE in one place. In May,…

La Aurora Gran 107 (Exclusive)

La Aurora is adding a new size to its popular Serie Aniversario 107 line, a 7 x 58 monster, known as “Gran 107.” This marks…

Romeo y Julieta Julieta

The Julieta size of the well known Romeo y Julieta brand is hitting the markets among great expectation. Manufactured with tobacco from Vuelta Abajo, the…

Weekly News (January 31, 2011)

Can he do it? Will he do it…? Yepp, another week, another Viaje LE announcement. Nope, I’m not kidding. It marks the seventh sixth (I…

Viaje WLP (White Label Project) Announced

Earlier this week, we broke the story that Viaje was releasing a special new release, the White Label Project (WLP) – within a few days,…

State of the Brand: Padilla

No manufacturer has been more open than Ernesto Padilla of the company he founded, regarding new products, social media and customer interaction. Since the show…

Weekly News (January 24, 2011)

On Tuesday, we broke the news regarding the discontinuation of the AVO 787. La Sirena, Miami Cigar & Co.’s newest release, is in Miami at the warehouse, should be at retailers in a few days. In other news from Miami Cigar & Co., the La Aurora Corojo will be released at the 2011 IPCPR show. For anyone that was at the show this past year, you’ll know it was one of the cigars featured at the booth, however packaging and branding concerns led to a decision to relaunch and release the cigar in July. It will feature new packaging and banding, but the cigar itself will be the same. La Aurora also announced that the 1495 BME Sumo Short Robusto will be making it’s U.S. debut. The NUb-style cigar has been in the European markets since early fall, and Miami Cigar & Co. has now decided to bring the cigar to the U.S. market. It’s 4 x 58 and should be available in a few packaging options, including boxes of five. In other large ring gauge news, the Cain F NUb is also shipping this week, the post from when we originally broke the story now has price points for the two sizes. In other Oliva/Studio Tobac news, rumor has it the Studio Tobac tour will start on el niño diablo’s birthday.

Cain F Nub Becomes Regular Production

I’m not sure this is really “breaking” or even “news” because everyone knew this was coming, but sources are telling me that Oliva plans on…