Indianhead Cigars Launches The Black Bag Job

Indianhead Cigars and the La Galera brand are digging into the library of cigars at Tabacalera Palma for a new limited edition project called The Black Bag Job.

The program is centered around a sampler containing three vintage cigars from Jochy Blanco’s library of blends, none of which have been released previously. While specifics of the cigars aren’t being released at this point, Brad Barden, the midwestern sales representative for the company and the person spearheading the project, put the average age of the cigars at around six years. Additionally, the cigars will be banded, but not with bands seen on other projects from the company.

The program is designed to have 25 retailers participate, each receiving 50 of the samplers. That makes for a total run of just 1,250 samplers and thus 1,250 of each of the three cigars inside. Each Black Bag Job pack is priced at $20, before taxes.

“When the world seemed to stop, we were left with nothing but time,” Barden wrote in an email describing the project. “During this time, we were able to search all corners of our vintage library of cigars. We call it our library because walking through the rows and rows of cigars feels like the days of school, searching for that one book, or in our case that one cigar. The result of this are some unique finds that have transformed into something that we really enjoyed.”

In addition to the cigars, each person who purchases a sampler will receive an invite to a Zoom meeting hosted by the retailer and their Indianhead sales representative, during which the details of the cigars will be announced.

The list of participating stores is as follows:

• Party Soure (Bellevue, Ky.)
• Burning Leaf (Aurora, Ill.)
• Beehive Cigar (Salt Lake City, Utah)
• Sturman’s Smoke Shop (Boise, Idaho)
• Sellwood Cigar (Portland, Ore.)
• Thunderbird Cigar Store (Tacoma, Wash.)
• Cigars Daily (Phoenix, Ariz.)
• Franklin Cigar (Franklin, Tenn.)
• Nashville Cigar (Nashville, Tenn.)
• Cigars and More 280 (Birmingham, Ala.)
• Cigar Monkey (Merced, Calif.)
• The Cave Downtown (Livermore, Calif.)
• Ohlone Cigar (Fremont, Calif.)
• Papa Juan’s Cigar Room (Bronx, N.Y.)
• Fume (Montclair, N.J.)
• New Tobacco Village (Whitehall, Pa.)
• Stix Cigar Lounge (Pompton Plains, N.J.)
• Harry’s Smoke Shop (Philadelphia, Pa.)
• Blue Smoke (Dallas, Texas)
• Habana Port Cigar Merchants (Baton Rouge, La.)
• The Outlaw Cigar Company (Kansas City, Mo.)
• The Outlaw Cigar Company (Overland Park, Kan.)
• Industrial Cigar (Frisco, Texas)

The cigars are scheduled to begin shipping on Monday.

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 the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for MLB.com, plus I'm a voice over artist. I previously covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.