Weekly News (March 28, 2011)

Pete Johnson gave an update to Saints & Sinners. Pete is waiting on swag for the club, which he says won’t be in until May, meaning that he’s going to hold back the launch a bit later than the April 1st (Friday) launch date he wanted. The good news is, it shouldn’t be much longer and Pete has indicated that he wants to make sure that the Tatuaje fans don’t have to wait long for their items to ship.

For the past month or so, rumors about Fuente have emerged about their 2011 strategy, at the center of them are discussions about re-releasing limited editions. Numerous sources have mentioned this, but details still aren’t clear. It sounds like it will be less than 1,000 boxes per release, announced at the show. I don’t know if Fuente plans on releasing like they did the 858 Sungrown, where retailers were forced to purchase a large quantity of product in package detail to get what once was the holy grail of Fuente releases. It sounds like this will be multiple re-releases, although all of it will only be released once. Short Story Maduro anyone?

• Viaje V.O.R. #5 & Viaje V.P.R. #6 2011 Editions — Some time in the next ten days we should see the follow-up to a cigar that was given #2 by everyone’s favorite cigar lifestyle publication. Details are still difficult to come by, but numerous sources tell me different sizes, one of them describes them as “interesting” sizes. And, eligible accounts for these have been told to clear all outstanding debt, so pay up.
• Cubao 6 x 60 — Pic above, no word on release.
• Juan Lopez Selección No.5 Edición Regional Andorra (2010) Released — Only a few months late. Still a few more 2010 Habanos that need to be released. More info here.
• C.Gars Ltd’s Next Auction — Mitchell Orchant announced that on July 11th, C.Gars Ltd will host the next edition of its popular auction. Info can be found here. The last auction featured some great items, unfortunately they don’t ship to the U.S.
• My Uzi Weights a Ton — Is a Joya de Nicaragua blended by Jonathan Drew. The medium strength cigar features a Brazilian wrapper in 7 x 60 form and is available for a short time at Burning Leaf in Illinois. No word on full production as of now.
• Pete Johnson will be at an event with Jesus Fuego in Hawaii in the coming days, there he will have some Faustos with a special PJ40th band on them. These cigars should not be confused with the actual PJ40th which will be released to the aforementioned Saints & Sinners club.
• Below is a pic of the Perdomo Champagne Noir box, still no word on when these are out, I’m thinking the show (July) at this point.
• E.P. Carrillo will ship both the Elecnos Series (based off of the LE2010) and the NWC (New Wave Connecticut) this week.
• General Cigar hosted Serie N day for La Gloria Cubana this past week. It was a fairly interesting approach and will be interesting to see if they host more.
• In addition, General made other strides on social media this past week, posting pics of the Punch Rare Corojo 10th Anniversary. (A sample pic below.) More pics on Facebook.
• The TAA meeting is going on in Cabo right now, Oliva Serie V No. 4s are available for sale in limited quantity.
• Word out of the UK is that a price increase is coming, and soon. Estimates are looking somewhere at a 5% raise to current prices.
• New York’s submitted budget includes a $1 cap on cigar taxes, this will be a big move in lowering the cost of a lot of cigars, which are currently subject to an uncapped 75% tax in the state.
• Tatuaje and cigarette company Lorillard will be going to court over the El Triunfador trademark. Frank Herrera’s CigarLaw has the paperwork in case you need to kill some time.
• In addition, Habana Gold is fight back at Habanos S.A.; Frank Herrera describes the law firm as “very competent” – we shall see.
• The owners of Just for Him in Springfield, MO have written an op-ed regarding the city’s proposed smoking ban. You can find that here.
• Jose Oliva is running for office, campaign image below.
• My good friend Brooks of SmokingStogie.com has announced a change to the format of their site, you can find that here.
• Happy Birthday to both Litto Gomez and Dylan Austin, all the cool people are born in March.
• Finally, the IPCPR is on Twitter.

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.