Kristoff Adding 685 Woodlawn

Kristoff has finalized the plans for their new small batch cigar and shared the details about it in an exclusive to halfwheel.

The new project will be called 685 Woodlawn, named for the address of the suburban Chicago house that Kristoff’s owner, Glen Case, lived in until he was 21. The house has been out of the family for 27-28 years, Case said.

The Kristoff 685 Woodlawn will be available in just one vitola, a 6 1/2 x 60 Double Perfecto. It will come in ten-count boxes with a price between $12.50 – $13 per cigar, and production will be limited to 2,000 boxes for a total run of 20,000 cigars.

It uses a natural Brazilian wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and a filler comprised of Nicaraguan and Dominican tobacco, as well as an additional leaf that Case would not disclose. The cigars are being made at the Charles Fairmon factory in Santiago, Dominican Republic.

While the official debut of the Kristoff 685 Woodlawn will occur at July’s IPCPR Convention and Trade Show in Las Vegas, the first 1,000 boxes will be offered to Tobacconist Association of America members at their annual meeting being held April 7 – 11 in the Dominican Republic. Case says that if the organization meets certain buying goals, they will be able to purchase the first release of the 685 Woodlawn. Boxes purchased at the TAA meeting will ship in mid-May, while the rest will ship following the IPCPR trade show.

Images of the cigar, band and boxes have not been made available yet, but Case describes it as a “very elegant box” and that the bands are “rich with gold foil and gold powder.”

The 685 Woodlawn is said to be the first of multiple new releases that Kristoff will be announcing prior to the IPCPR trade show, though Case declined to into specifics other than saying that he will be unveiling “a whole new Kristoff.” He didn’t anticipate any significant deletions to his catalog, though he is considering dropping some of the smaller ring gauges from his portfolio.

Update (April 1, 2013): Glen Case provided a copy of the band that will be on the Kristoff 685 Woodlawn:

Patrick Lagreid

I strive to capture the essence of a cigar and the people behind them in my work – every cigar you light up is the culmination of the work of countless people and often represents generations of struggle and stories. For me, it’s about so much more than the cigar – it’s about the story behind it, the experience of enjoying the work of artisans and the way that a good cigar can bring people together. In addition to my work with halfwheel, I’m the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training, as well as for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury and previously the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for Major League Baseball, plus I'm a voice over artist. Prior to joining halfwheel, I covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.