Monday, September 04 2006
When a friend suggested to Nick Perdomo that he ought to try what some winemakers do and make a cigar from a single "vineyard," he thought that might be interesting. The result is the remarkable
Perdomo Lot 23.
Discovered by Perdomo and his father, the late Nicolas Perdomo, Lot 23 is a 103-acre parcel located about six miles north of the Tabacalera Perdomo in Esteli, Nicaragua. "It was virgin land," Perdomo remembered. "It was owned by the Catholic Church of Nicaragua and we rented the land for 10 years."
Once cleared, the area was planted with Corojo and Criollo '98 seed in September 2000 and raised a beautiful crop of more than 100 tons.
"We looked into doing the entire cigar from that crop, but there wasn't enough wrapper," explained Perdomo. "But the tobacco was great and we didn't need to blend it with Jalapa leaf or Condega the two other places in Nicaragua where we grow - to make a cigar we liked.
"So we tried it with Cameroon and Connecticut Shade, but we also had some four-to-five-year-old Connecticut Shade leaf from fifth and sixth primings [high on the plant] that was a really pretty chocolate brown color, much darker than the Connecticut Shade most people are used to seeing.
"As you know, I'm a Cameroon freak, but I really liked the old Connecticut leaf best."
The new Lot 23 line, in four shapes, debuted at the Retail Tobacco Dealers of America trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada earlier this year and had been an immediate hit. Packed in boxes of 20 with an integrated shelf talker, the cigars are well priced at only $4.25 to $5.00 each (before local tobacco taxes). "It's already backordered," sighed Perdomo, but it's a good problem to have.
Ever heard of Bernard H. Grobet? Maybe not, but he's had quite an impact on the world of cigars over the past 20-plus years.
Grobet's "Griffin's Club" was a Geneva, Switzerland hot spot in the 1980s and he created a special house cigar called The Griffin's for sale in his club in 1984. It was so well received that he soon began selling it to other Swiss cigar retailers and brought it to the U.S. in 1989.
Grobet had the cigars made at a new factory called Tabacos Dominicanos in Santiago, Dominican Republic, headed by a largely unknown figure named Hendrik Kelner. It was Grobet who introduced Zino Davidoff to Kelner when Davidoff was looking to move his namesake brand from Cuba, and finally did so in 1989.
The Griffin's brand was sold to Oettinger Imex (the owner of Davidoff) in 1992 and Davidoff of Geneva is now rolling out a "Griffin's Bucks" loyalty program a state at a time. Following successful 30-day tours in New York, Maryland, Missouri and Tennessee, the contest is now starting in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia for the month of September and will roll into Florida in October. Purchasers of The Griffin's get one "Griffin's Buck" for every $10 spent, which can then be redeemed for a variety of items, including a Griffin's cap, cutter, ashtray, two-finger case or polo shirt. The buyer with the most Griffin's Bucks (minimum 20) at the end of the promotion in each state gets a box of The Griffin's as a grand prize!
Short fillers: A strong push against California Proposition 86, which would raise the tax on cigars to 135% of the wholesale price and impose an 88% floor tax, has begun. An excellent information web site, CalLiberty.org is now available for more information . . . because of high taxes, cigarette smuggling in Britain has become so pervasive that as many as 30% of Britain's convenience stores may be threatened (in the U.S., that would place more than 42,000 stores in jeopardy!). The Retailers Against Smuggling association has asked the British government to lower the cigarette tax so that it's equal to that on the European Continent and eliminate both "tobacco tourism" and smuggling . . . find our latest tasting review, contrasting the Cuban and Dominican-made Cohiba blends, in our our News & Views archives.
- Rich Perelman in Los Angeles
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Heard in the Humidor is a publication of Perelman, Pioneer & Company.
Copyright 2006; All rights reserved.
