PCA 2023: Ashton

It’s very difficult for me to imagine Ashton doing what it did this year, say, a decade ago. In late May, seemingly out of nowhere, Ashton announced an all-new line. For a company that doesn’t always have a new line each year—this was the first one since 2021—this is a big deal for Ashton. Given the announcement came on May 30, a little more than a month before the trade show, I would have expected that Ashton would have waited to release the cigar until the 2023 PCA Convention & Trade Show. But no, it shipped the next day.

I think that speaks a lot about how the relationship between cigar companies and this trade show has changed, especially in a post-COVID-19 world. From my perspective, there seems to have been a very large shift in how companies planned around the trade show between pre- and post-COVID times. Where PCA Convention & Trade Show—née IPCPR Convention & Trade Show—was once something that companies planned the calendar around, now it seems more like something that is on the calendar that companies try to accommodate versus planning around it as the starting point.

As for Ashton’s booth, it’s the same one the company debuted last year. It’s another one of the four walls in the middle with products displayed on each panel and storage and a small meeting room in the center. That said, Ashton uses the seating around its booth for meetings. I was a big fan of the Ashton booth last year and that extends this year. It works really well, in my opinion, and outside of some harsh lighting, it looks quite good too.

La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut

This was one of the few cigars that I smoked during the trade show. If I’ll let you (the reader) know about the cigars I smoke that I found to be “good” during the show, I think it’s only fair you get to read about when things don’t go to plan. The cigar I smoked was bunched poorly, as in, I could feel the soft spots before I cut the cigar. My Father Cigars S.A. is the factory that makes these cigars and that’s not a factory I associate with construction issues, so I suspect this was an outlier. I’m looking forward to trying another one.

• Wrapper: Ecuador (Connecticut)
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua

• La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut Churchill (7 x 50) — $7.85 (Box of 25, $196.25)
• La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut Corona (5 1/2 x 44) — $6.50 (Box of 25, $162.50)
• La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut El Jefe (7 x 58) — $8.45 (Box of 24, $202.80)
• La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut Immensa (5 3/4 x 60) — $7.50 (Box of 24, $180)
• La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut Monarch (6 x 52) — $7.25 (Box of 25, $181.25)
• La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut Robusto (5 1/4 x 54) — $6.75 (Box of 24, $162)
• La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut Rothschild (5 x 50) — $6.25 (Box of 25, $156.25)

Production: Regular Production

Release Date: June 1, 2023