After the initial shipments of the Alec & Bradley Gatekeeper Diamond Press were found to not meet the expectations of Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) in regards to the diamond-press shape, the company has decided to stop all shipments of the cigars and stop further sales of the cigars.

The Alec & Bradley Gatekeeper Diamond Press is a 6 1/4 x 54 box-pressed toro, though instead of getting a traditional box press that results in the cigar looking like a rectangle, the Diamond Press ends up looking like a rhombus. It was a style of press that had been used before on other Alec Bradley releases, the Nica Puro Diamond Rough Cut and the Black Market Estelí Diamond. Like the rest of the Gatekeeper line, the Diamond Press features an Ecuadorian habano wrapper over a Nicaraguan binder and filler from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. It had been priced at $12.75 per cigar and was to be a limited edition, with 1,500 boxes of 16 cigars produced by Tabacos de Oriente in Honduras.

The vitola was shown off at the 2023 Total Product Expo (TPE) in late February and was expected to begin shipping in late April, though that date came and went without the cigars being released. The Gatekeeper Diamond Press was eventually released in early October when a small number of shipments went out to retailers. As those shipments were going out, the cigars were found not to meet the company’s expectations when it came to the diamond shape, a spokesperson for STG told halfwheel, adding that the issue was solely with the shape of the cigars, not their quality otherwise.

About a week after those first shipments went out, the company paused shipments to evaluate what would be next for the Gatekeeper Diamond Press, ultimately deciding to stop selling the cigars due to the issues with the diamond press shape.

A representative from STG said that only a small number of retailers received the product, and its sales team has been in contact with those stores about the next steps, though did not offer a suggestion for what consumers should do should they find that the cigars do not live up to the promise of being diamond-shaped. The company has not announced if it plans to remake the cigars and release them in the future.

The Alec Bradley brand is distributed by Forged Cigar Co., a division of STG, which acquired the brand in February.

Update: Shortly after this story was published, a representative from STG issued a correction to a previous statement made to halfwheel that the cigars had been pulled from the market. The cigars that have been shipped to stores have not been pulled from the market, with the representative reiterating that the company’s sales team is working with those retailers on next steps. 

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Patrick Lagreid

I strive to capture the essence of a cigar and the people behind them in my work – every cigar you light up is the culmination of the work of countless people and often represents generations of struggle and stories. For me, it’s about so much more than the cigar – it’s about the story behind it, the experience of enjoying the work of artisans and the way that a good cigar can bring people together. In addition to my work with halfwheel, I’m the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training, as well as for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury and previously the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for Major League Baseball, plus I'm a voice over artist. Prior to joining halfwheel, I covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.