Weekly News (April 11, 2011)

This week in cigar news: Pete Johnson. Seriously, it’s a relatively quiet week with the notable exception of Tatuaje’s Pete Johnson. When you remove the Havana Cellars news, it becomes shockingly silent. After the jump, a massive La Flor Dominicana, a new Nestor Miranda, the rerelease of a few cigars, including an ultra-rare Oliva, a few updates regarding Viaje, legislation news and more.

• La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero “The Digger” — An 8 1/2 x 60 Monster released to one-hundred retailers. Perhaps the most interesting fact, Broadleaf. Details here.
• Litto Gomez Diez LG Cubanito — Also being released with “The Digger”… Not as exciting, as far as details go.
• Nestor Miranda Grand Reserve — A while back someone over at Miami Cigar & Co. told me about a new Nestor Miranda project that was box-pressed and featured a Broadleaf wrapper. Jason Wood confirmed that it will be 6 1/4 x 52 in box-pressed Torpedo fashion. At IPCPR in July, 1,000 boxes of 10 with a MSRP of $100 will be released.
• The Tatuaje SWAM 5th Anniversary — Shiroma’s Wine and More in Hawaii has purchased some Tatuaje Havana VI Verocu No. 1s (more commonly known as the “Westie”) and with the alleged blessing of Pete Johnson rebanded them for their fifth anniversary. The “Westie,” also known as, the Exclusivo Lado Occidental, was originally released in 2008, along with the Verocu No. 2, known as the “Eastie.” The 6 1/4 x 52 Nicaraguan puros have been re-released a few times in recent memory, once as the ELO #1s for New Havana Cigars and more recently it seems some retailers have been able to get additional cigars in their original condition. There’s a pic above, these are limited, I’m just not sure how limited.
• Tatuaje Series P is Back — Only a few months after Pete Johnson announced that the value-priced Series P was returning, it emerges. Three sizes (Short Robusto, Robusto and Toro) are offered. As per Pete Johnson’s advice, use a punch cutter.
• Ambos Mundos Shorts — We said sixty days, and here they are. It’s the 4 1/2 x 46 size available in both Habano and Sumatra.
• Tatuaje La Dueña — I was doing some random trademark searches last month and I ran across La Dueña, something that was trademarked by Tatuaje. Pete Johnson has been known to trademark names, but generally has a use for them. This past week, Janny Garcia, daughter of Jose “Don Pepin” Garcia, tweeted about smoking La Dueña. Unlike most of Pete Johnson’s new lines, Pete has remained silent on this front for some time. “La Dueña” translates into “the owner”, I would suspect that this is the cigar being made for Janny, which is expected to be released at the show.
• The Viaje Tower Cigars 45th were released last week, my understanding is these are sold out now.
• The Viaje V.O.R. & V.P.R. are apparently delayed until late April. Andre Farkas has an event at BURN Premium Cigar in MN (Not to be confused with BURN by Rocky Patel) on the 23rd of this month, seems like it might be a good time to release them, but that’s solely speculation on my part.
• A picture of the My Father LE 2011 box has emerged (below), the cigars should be out late this week or early next week. The cigars aren’t supposed to be in coffins, like the 2010 releases, so it will be interesting to see how the cigars are packaged beyond this.
• The Para Japón by La Aurora is now available for pre-orders from at least one retailer. The cigars have bands on them (below) and are still on track for a release later this month.
• The Nicaraguan Cigar Festival was held this past week, there was no new product released per se, although a few special editions emerged. Included were a rerelease of Oliva Serie V Culebra (which was originally released a few years ago as a raffle item) and a My Father Humidor containing My Father LE 2011s and Jaime Garcia LEs (which are to be released at the show) was auctioned off for charity. There will be at least two of these made for the auction and about three-hundred more for shops sold at $1700.
• Nestor Miranda Day will be held May 6th. This is the third year in a row that Miami Cigar & Co. is hosting the event. Three-hundred tobacconists around the country will be given two boxes of Nestor Miranda Art Deco Robusto Grande (5.5 x 54) to give away as singles to customers. All customers have to do is buy any cigar (it doesn’t have to be a Miami Cigar & Co. product) and they will be given one for free until supplies run out. Tampa Humidor will be the main host and Nestor Miranda will be on hand to sign autographs, give away t-shirt, play dominoes and answer questions about his timepiece. (I’m sure there will be a press release coming shortly.)
• Cigar Aficionado’s Marvin Shanken’s A Night to Remember was hosted this past week. Close to $2 million was raised for charity and many phenomenal cigars were auctioned off. Details can be found here.
• Altadis S.A. has opened up the Tabacalera de Garcia for tours.
• This isn’t really news, since it’s been going on for a while, but Bryan “The Show” Scholle, the face of Studio Tobac, has been blogging, a lot.
• Nevada is proposing doubling the tax on cigars as one way to help cope with budget shortfalls.
• Ron Melendi, of De La Concha, is urging citizens of New York state to request that their representatives vote yes on two bills aimed at capping the New York cigar tax, as it failed to pass with the budget.

Yours truly was on TheCigarAuthority show this past week. If you click this link, you can listen to the show. el niño diablo makes an appearance at the beginning of the second hour.

Finally, something that interested me… Here’s a picture of the guestbook from the opening of the first Davidoff of Geneva store in New York.

Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.