IPCPR 2018: Top 3 Things – Brooks Whittington

If there is one question that I get asked the most during and after the IPCPR Convention & Trade Show every year, it is some variation of: smoke anything good that is new? That is not the point of this post, but the answer to the second most asked question I usually get is, namely: did you see anything cool at the show?

Because of the fact each of our team of four has a set list of booths to cover each and every day, there are inevitably booths, people or things that we don’t get to see, either because we are not covering that specific company and did not have time to stop by and talk to them due to the almost overwhelming pace that we try and keep. Therefore, the following are three of the things I that I happened to take note of during the six days I was in Las Vegas for the show.

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1. Colibri Quasar Cut — I have to admit, when Charlie listed this cutter as one of his Top 5 Accessories We Want To Try At The Show, I was intrigued. In fact, while the 2016 IPCPR show brought us a unique cigar cutter in the form of the XIKAR XO, Colibri made a big splash at this year’s show with its followup to the Quasar humidor, Quasar ashtray and Quasar Table Cutter.

Turns out, the Quasar Cut is a creation of beauty and grace, with the sides of the blades hollowed out, leaving just the blades themselves. While I have not come close to testing it extensively yet, the look alone is worth the price of admission for me and it has instantly rocketed to the top of my list for most unique cutter designs.

2. Drew Estate IPCPR Commemorative “Collecion de Series Únicos” Sampler — Having been an artist in a couple of my former lives, I am always on the lookout for interesting packaging and this sampler fits the bill easily. Drew Estate gave boxes of this sampler out to attendees of this year’s media party, and each individually numbered box includes one of every Liga Privada Unico Serie released so far as well as the yet-to-be-released Nasty Fritas.

While the cigars are nice enough, the gorgeous design of the box is what drew my attention, from the deep blue color and sliver accents to the fact that each of the cigars is wrapped in paper and covered in the same custom sticker. In fact, while I don’t have any insider knowledge about it, with the amount of time and effort that went into the design and production of these, I would not be surprised if they were sold at some point in the future.

3. Puritos at AGANORSA Leaf Booth — Although the AGANORSA Leaf booth had a number of new products at this year’s show, one of the most interesting things that I saw was not actually sold, but given away. The company formally known as Casa Fernández was actually handing out at least two puritos of specific tobaccos for people to smoke: one was made up of corojo 99 while another was composed of criollo 98.

For those of you that don’t know, a purito is a small piece of tobacco from a specific leaf of tobacco that is typically rolled into its own small cigar and smoked either as part of a component tasting or to check on the progress of how a specific bale of tobacco is progressing. It is a great idea to show off the company’s creations to retailers and just goes to show how proud the company is of its tobacco.