Today was the day… the all-new Tatuaje website launched as well as the official announcement for the newest addition to the Monster Series, “The Face” launched. In total, 21,658 cigars will be available for purchase divided up between 666 dress boxes containing 13 cigars and 1,300 plain boxes containing 10 cigars. The dress boxes will be shipping Oct. 13, while the other boxes will be out right around Halloween. The cigars have a MSRP of $13, but there are definitely retailers who are marking them up.
The reason behind the dress boxes and regular boxes is simple, these cigars command a high price on both the retail and secondary markets and their limited availability combined with the diehardness of Tatuaje fans means that tons of regular smokers don’t get them. As such, Johnson wanted to make sure that regular smokers could get a chance to smoke at least one. As a side-note, When I talked to Johnson at the show, he was thrilled about his partnership with S.T. Dupont to create this limited edition Maxijet lighter. I sort of feel like you should get a free box with purchase, but anyways.
Johnson will not be releasing the Actor Series like he did last year (Boris) at the same time, instead of late October, expect to see the cigar around the time of the Oscar’s, i.e. February.
According to Pete Johnson:
They’re in boxes of 13, the cigars are uncellophaned, and wrapped in brown paper with burlap around the bundle, real gnarly-looking. We’re doing 666 of those coffins… There were some guys who only wanted to smoke the cigars. They didn’t want the fancy box, they just wanted the cigars. So we’ll have 1,300 boxes of 10, very plain boxes that just say ‘Tatuaje Halloween 2010 No. 3’ and those are boxes of 10 with cellophane, individually. So for the guys who just wanted to smoke the cigar, they can buy them on the shelf the week of Halloween. But the fancy boxes will be released before the 13th of October.
The cigar itself features a unique tobacco band an ugly Mexican wrapper, with Pete describing the blend as “Cojonu style bold blend.” It remains unclear if this was the only Mexican tobacco Pepin was referring to when talking about new 2010 releases. It should be noted that My Father Cigars has a planned released left for 2010 and Pepin in recent interviews stated his next big chapter would be using Mexican tobacco.
There are thirteen retailers, who have dibs on the boxes, during Halloween the remaining boxes will be sold to 130 other retailers. Most of “the unlucky 13 retailers” are taking pre-orders, for your convenience:
- A Little Taste of Cuba Princeton, NJ 08542 609.683.8988 cubacigar.com
- Anthony’s Cigar Emporium anthonyscigar.com 520.531.9155 Tucson, AZ 85704
- Burn’s Tobacconist Chattanooga, TN 37421 423.855.5200 cbcburns.com Centro Cigars Lawrence, KS 66049 785.856.7773 centrocigars.com
- Cigars International Bethlehem, PA 18020 484.895.3933 cigarsinternational.com
- Cigar King Skokie, IL 60077 847.675.2447 cigarking.com
- Gloucester St. Cigar Company* 617.424.1000 Boston, MA 02115
- Owl Shop of Worcester Worcester, MA 06108 508.753.0423 owlshop.com
- Three J’s Cigar Emporium Wellington, FL 33467 561.868.5600 3jcigar.com
- Tobacco Plaza Great Neck, NY 11020 516.829.7134 tobacco-plaza.com
- Tower Pipes & Cigar Sacramento, CA 95818 916.443.8466 towercigars.com
- Uptown’s Smoke Shop Nashville, TN 37215 615.292.6866 uptowns.com
- Up In Smoke Irving, TX 75063 972.556.0115 upinsmoketexas.com