PCA 2023: Martinez Cigars
Last year, Martinez Cigars exhibited at the PCA Convention and Trade Show for the first time in a small booth towards the back of the show floor. This year, they’re sharing a larger booth with J. London Cigars towards the front.
The company’s director of product development and marketing, Dave Rivera, was back in the booth again this year and happy to talk to me about the new things coming from the small New York-based cigar factory.
The booth space itself was nice. It’s not often you see low walls like this, with exhibitors either opting for no walls or tall ones that make it hard to see inside the booth as you walk by. This was a nice middle ground, defining the space while letting you see all the cigars on display as you walked by.
The Riki Taki debuted in September 2022, and now the company has reworked the blend and is debuting it in two new sizes, one of which is exclusive for retailers attending the PCA Convention & Trade Show. The blend now uses a Dominican habano wrapper, a Sumatran binder from Indonesia, and fillers from Nicaraguan and the Dominican Republic. The original blend used an Ecuadorian corojo wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and a filler of Nicaraguan seco and ligero, along with Dominican ligero. The original release robusto is keeping its blend for now, though it could be released in both blends in the future.
- Wrapper: Dominican Republic (Habano)
- Binder: Indonesia (Sumatra)
- Filler: Dominican Republic & Nicaragua
- La Bodega Series Riki Taki Lancero (7 x 44) — $12 (Box of 20, $240)
- La Bodega Series Perfecto (4 1/2 x 46) — $10.50 (Box of 20, $210)
Production: Regular Production
Release Date: August 2023
Martinez NYC Blend Queens
Previously a shop exclusive at the company’s factory and retail location in Manhattan, the NYC Blend Queens size is getting a national release. Rivera noted this was the first blend that came out of the factory.
- Wrapper: Cameroon
- Binder: Indonesia (Sumatra)
- Filler: Dominican Republic & Nicaragua
- NYC Blend Queens (5 1/4 x 40) — $4.80 (Box of 25, $120)
Production: Regular Production
Release Date: July 2023
Brian Burt
I have been smoking cigars since 2005 and reviewing them as a hobby since 2010. Initially, I started out small with a 50-count humidor and only smoking one or two cigars a month. Not knowing anybody else that smoked cigars, it was only an occasional hobby that I took part in. In March of 2010, I joined Nublive and Cigar Asylum, connecting me with many people who also shared an interest in cigars. Reading what they had to say about brands I had never heard of, I quickly immersed myself in the boutique brands of the industry and it was then that cigars transformed from a hobby into a passion.
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