PCA 2023: Casa Turrent

Going into the 2023 PCA Convention & Trade Show, I had little idea what Casa Turrent had in store for the show, mainly because the company wasn’t replying to my e-mails and wasn’t on the exhibitor list. Sutliff Tobacco, the company’s U.S. distributor, confirmed that Casa Turrent was going to be there. So walking into the show, I wasn’t sure just what I’d see when I paid the company a visit on day three.

The booth was much the same as it had been in previous years, essentially a bookcase within the Sutliff booth with the company’s cigars on display. Alejandro Turrent was there, which I was glad to see as I have found him a fascinating person to talk with, and I still have great memories of when he welcomed me to the company’s factory and farms a few years back, allowing me to check off an item that was pretty high on my cigar industry bucket list.

Turrent told me that he has shifted focus on sales largely away from the United States and towards Europe, where the company seems to be finidng more traction. He has also trimmed down his portfolio extensively, taking all of the company’s lines down to just a single 5 1/4 x 55 robusto vitola, a change that went into effect about three months ago, with all of those cigars now selling for $20 each and offered in boxes of 10 cigars. He also noted that it has become increasingly challenging to find workers for his factory in San Andrés Tuxtla, which has limited the company’s ability to grow. It’s an interesting development for a company that not all that long ago was making a big push for the U.S. market, though maybe 2016 and 2017 are further in the rearview mirror than I give them credit for being.