Sunday, June 07 2009
As the seasons change, so does Rocky Patel's seasonal cigar collection. As we
head into summer, the Rocky Patel Summer Collection is ready to go and is now becoming available at the limited number of smokeshops which carry this limited-edition
blend.
Sam Phillips, director of marketing for Rocky Patel Premium Cigars, likes the Summer Collection. "It glides across the palate," he said, "it’s rich and complex, with a light spiciness in the beginning that picks up steam as you go. There is a creamy element that comes in, but it finishes strong."
This new Summer blend features an Ecuadorian-grown Rosado wrapper leaf over a Honduran-grown binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan-grown filler leaves. It’s offered in what have become the three standard sizes for Patel’s seasonal productions:
- Robusto: 5 inches by 50 ring, in cellophane, in boxes of 20;
- Toro: 6 inches by 52 ring, in cellophane, in boxes of 20;
- Torpedo: 6 1/2 inches by 52 ring, in cellophane, in boxes of 20.
Only 1,500 boxes of each size have been produced (4,500 total), for a total of 90,000 Summer Collection cigars in total.
Some boxes of the Spring Collection are still around; the final blend featured a Sumatra wrapper, with a Mexican-grown binder and Honduran and Nicaraguan filler tobaccos, also offered in a total of 4,500 boxes of 20 (90,000 cigars total), in the same three sizes.
The Summer Collection is Patel’s fifth seasonal cigar. Introduced at the IPCPR show last year, all four of the prior editions have sold well, with the Winter Collection a special hit thanks to its extra-full-powered performance.
>> Nestor Miranda never dreamed that he’d be celebrating 20 years in cigars, and as one of the fast-growing distributors in the United States with brands including La Aurora, Leon Jimenes, Tatiana, 601, Cubao, Brun del Re and more. But his Miami Cigar & Co. is in fact 20 years old.
On Friday, June 12, the company will celebrate "National Nestor Miranda Cigar Day" with the distribution of a free Nestor Miranda Special Selection Danno - a 7-inch by 56-ring cigar made for the 20th anniversary and named in memory of Miranda’s late son Daniel - for smokers who buy any cigar of any kind on that day in any of the 500 smokeshops nationwide that stock the Nestor Miranda Special Selection line . . . while supplies last, of course.
The Danno was created for Miranda by Pepin Garcia in Nicaragua and issued in only 2,000 boxes of 20 (40,000 cigars total), half of which sport a medium-bodied Nicaraguan-grown Habano Rosado wrapper and the other 1,000 boxes a full-bodied Habano Oscuro wrapper, around the Nicaraguan binder and three-nation interior blend.
In addition, Miranda is making an important offer to smokers who purchase a box of any of the Special Selection sizes: 10 Special Selection Coffee Break cigars (4 1/2 x 50) for free plus a one-year membership in Cigar Rights of America, paid for by Miami Cigar.
"We believe that building membership in Cigar Rights of America is the only way those of us who enjoy cigars can mitigate the onslaught of additional taxes and draconian anti-smoking regulations," said Miranda in a statement. "Therefore, Miami Cigar & Company is making every effort to enhance the membership of CRA." It’s a worthwhile cause and every additional member makes the organization stronger.
>> After the Nevada Assembly Judiciary killed S.B. 372, a bill which would have rolled back certain parts of the 2006 voter-adopted smoking ban legislation, it appeared that hopes for holding future tobacco-related trade shows in Las Vegas were dead.
But business is business and an amendment to allow smoking on trade show and convention floors where minors are not present was added on a voice vote to a bill dealing with stalkers (A.B. 309) at the very end of the Nevada legislative session on Monday evening and after a furious round of negotiations, passed both the Assembly and the Senate. The bill is expected to be signed by Governor Jim Gibbons.
Senator Mark Amodei (R-Carson City) told the Associated Press that "There's a lot of people saying you're ignoring the will of the voters, but there's an exception in the ballot that says smoking in tobacco retail shops open to the public is OK. Allowing smoking at a convention that's not open to the public is not doing any violence to the Indoor Clean Air Act."
Las Vegas tourism officials noted that the Tobacco Plus Expo and the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association conventions brought in $41 million in business to Las Vegas in otherwise light periods of the year and was difficult to replace. With the exemption, which will take effect in December, it’s sure that the Tobacco Plus Expo – just held in New Orleans last month, but which had been held in Las Vegas for each its previous 12 editions – will move back to Las Vegas for 2010.
IPCPR Executive Director Joe Rowe noted last month that if the exemption went through, that his association would hold its 2009 and 2010 shows in New Orleans, but would go back to Las Vegas for 2011 and 2012. The IPCPR has used the Sands Expo Center, connected to The Venetian and Palazzo hotels, as its exhibit facility of choice in Las Vegas in recent years.
The amendment did not get through without a fight. The Associated Press report noted that the sponsor of A.B. 309, Assemblywoman Ellen Koivisto (D-Las Vegas), "said she was warned by Senate members that the bill would not pass if the tobacco convention language was left out of the bill, so she worked to add it back in."
"‘I've never had a bill that was a battle ground before, at least not this late in the session," said Koivisto. "I brought that bill because of a woman in my district who was killed by a stalker. The stalking bill is so important."
For Nevada, so is the money (and jobs) generated by having the two major cigar-related trade fairs held in the U.S. each year in Las Vegas.
- 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.
