Sunday, January 25 2009
The ubiquitous Rocky Patel has unleashed yet another new
blend called the Rocky Patel
Havana Corojo. It's made in the El Paraiso factory in Danli, Honduras that Patel co-owns with Nestor Plasencia and is designed to be, in the words of Patel's marketing director, Sam Phillips, "something real special."
It's a medium-to-full-bodied blend, but with rich, spicy tones and excellent balance. The wrapper is an extra-dark, Nicaraguan-grown Corojo leaf, with Nicaraguan-grown binder and filler leaves inside. "It's not overpowering, but it's got lots of flavor," noted Phillips.
The blend is not marketed by Patel, but rather by the well-known and widely-respected House of Oxford of Somerset, New Jersey, which also markets specially-made editions of the Don Tomas line, also with Corojo wrappers, and of Astral. That means you'll be seeing the Rocky Patel Havana Corojo line all across the country.
There are four shapes, all double-banded and offered in boxes of 20: Robusto (5 inches by 54 ring); Toro (6 x 60); Toro Grande (7 x 54), and Torpedo (6 x 52).
Patel is one of the most prolific blenders anywhere, with 15 of his own brands on the market, not to mention more than a dozen others made for other distributors, such as the House of Oxford, Cigar Domain and Meier & Dutch.
One of the newest features of Patel's own line-up is the seasonal limited edition. He introduced two last year, the Summer Collection and Autumn Collection and the third, the Rocky Patel Winter Collection is on the way.
Phillips didn't reveal all the details, but said the blend would be released in the next 30 days. Its signature will be an extra-special maduro wrapper, but there won't be many to go around. Only about 1,000 boxes of 20 of each of three sizes are planned; that's just 60,000 cigars in total. "This is one serious cigar," he said, promising more details soon.
>> What happens when you're caught with 28,000 Cuban-made cigars, 42 bottles of Cuban rum, 100 cartons of Cuban cigarettes and 30 pounds of Cuban coffee?
You get convicted of a felony and get sentenced to 36 months probation and required to enter a substance abuse program and submit to random drug testing.
That's what happened on January 20 to 69-year-old Douglas Hiner of Port Charlotte, Florida, who pled guilty to one count of importing illegal goods into the U.S. Although the U.S. Attorney's Office had recommended a prison sentence, U.S. District Judge John Steele decided on probation instead.
Hiner was caught last May when the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted his 53- foot sailboat, the Vitamin Sea, and found hidden compartments which contained Cuban-origin goods that are prohibited under the American trade embargo with Cuba. The discovery led investigators to a Fort Myers storage facility which contained the 28,000 cigars, the rum, coffee, cigarettes and other contraband.
"Obviously, I wasn't a good smuggler," he told the Omaha World-Herald. "But it was a victimless crime. Essentially, it was a political crime."
Hiner was a real estate developer in Omaha and reportedly amassed a $6 million fortune before finding out that his partner had embezzled most of the money and then, after being indicted, fled to Australia. When things were good, Hiner used to sail to Cuba to deliver medical supplies and came back with some Cuban cigars for his friends.
After moving to Florida after declaring bankruptcy in 2005, Hiner soon began buying hundreds or thousands of cigars to sell in the U.S., but was apparently buying them off the street instead of from legitimate stores. Thus, he had considerable trouble moving them in the U.S. And then he ran into the Coast Guard.
"I'm very relieved," he said after the sentencing hearing. "I had moved everything out of my apartment and into a storage locker. Basically, I thought I was going to jail." At 69, he doesn't have a lot of job prospects, but he does have one real estate deal cooking that could lead to others.
>> Any business which survives for 20 years has a lot to celebrate, but these are especially heady times for Miami Cigar & Co., founded and still owned by the Miranda family.
Best known for many years as the distributor of cigars made at the La Aurora factory in the Dominican Republic, Miami Cigar has branched out and now distributes the popular Don Lino Africa line made in Nicaragua, the hot 601 and Cubao lines made at Pepin Garcia's Tabacalera Cubana in Nicaragua, Brun del Re from Costa Rica and the Nestor Miranda Special Selection, also made in Nicaragua and named for the company's founder and chief executive.
Naturally, there will be plenty of in-store events, but Miami Cigar is planning an eight-stage celebration of their two decades in business between March and November, to be held in eight different cities! Marketing director Rene Castaneda promises "special guests, special products and special activities" at each stop. More details are expected in the spring.
- Rich Perelman in Los Angeles
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Reprinted by permission. "Heard in the Humidor" is a publication of Perelman, Pioneer & Company. Copyright 2009; All rights reserved.
