Southern Draw To Debut 300 Hands and 300 Manos at IPCPR 2018

For one of its new offerings that will be unveiled at the upcoming IPCPR Convention & Trade Show, Southern Draw Cigars is paying tribute to the men and women who bring your cigar from seed to shelf.

The new project, called 300 Hands, features a pair of cigars, 300 Hands and 300 Manos, a nod in both English and Spanish to the approximate number of steps it takes to produce a cigar, and more importantly the people whose hands touch your cigar on its journey, and in this case, on its journey from Nicaragua to the United States. In a press release, the company calls the project “a celebration of the most distinctive tobaccos born of Nicaragua’s special combination of soil, temperature and sunlight, of differing yet refined processes and most notably, the tobacco stained hands that meticulously perform every step required to produce a Southern Draw cigar.”

300 Hands uses a Nicaraguan maduro wrapper leaf grown in the country’s Estelí region, while the binder comes from Indonesia and the filler hails from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. 300 Manos, which is pronounced trescientos manos, uses an Ecuadorian habano wrapper, binder from Cameroon, and fillers from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Both lines are being made at Tabacalera AJ Fernandez Cigars de Nicaragua S.A. in Estelí, will come in 10-count bundles, and are being offered in the same five vitolas and prices:

• 300 Hands/300 Manos Petit Edmundo (4 3/4 x 52) – $5.99 (Bundles of 10, $59.99)
• 300 Hands/300 Manos Coloniales (5 1/4 x 44) – $6.19 (Bundles of 10, $61.99)
• 300 Hands/300 Manos Corona Gorda (5 5/8 x 46) – $6.29 (Bundles of 10, $62.99)
• 300 Hands/300 Manos Piramides (6 1/8 x 52) – $6.39 (Bundles of 10, $63.99)
• 300 Hands/300 Manos Churchill (7 x 48) – $6.49 (Bundles of 10, $64.99)

It’s also a limited release, with 15,000 cigars per size and blend being made, for a total run of 150,000 cigars. The company is also producing 250 display trays for its retailers.

“We want to share this story with the masses and have priced this cigar line in an unbeatable range of $5.99 – $6.49 while expanding our charitable giving strategy to Nicaragua,” said Sharon Holt, co-founder of Southern Draw Cigars. She added that the company will distribute 25 percent of its profits to those Nicaraguans that offered their honest stories and identified specific needs in and around their own communities.

The cigar also comes at a time when the country is undergoing civil unrest and widespread violence as part of government reforms to its healthcare and pension system.

“We have high hopes for a better Nicaragua as they fight to overcome decades old struggles that have just recently escalated into what has been deemed a ‘newsworthy’ crisis, “ stated Robert Holt of Southern Draw in a press release.

The cigars will go on sale on July 15 at 11 am during the upcoming IPCPR Convention & Trade Show, which happens July 13-17 in Las Vegas, Nev. Shipping is scheduled to occur in August and October.

As part of its press release, the company has also released a brochure that features some of the people working in the Nicaraguan cigar industry and tells their story so that retailers and consumers can better understand the people behind the project.