Tuesday, September 19 2006
"The global cigar market, estimated at roughly 15 billion units, is highly concentrated in geographic terms. More than 96% of all sales are recorded in Western Europe (Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom) and the United States, which account for 55% and 41% of the market."
That's the introduction to Altadis, S.A.'s overview of the worldwide cigar market. It's accompanied by a chart which shows that:
(1) 97% of all cigars sold worldwide are machine-made and only 3% are premium handmades and
(2) 72% of the monetary sales volume comes from mass-market cigars and just 28% from premiums.
It's about the same story in the U.S., where the Cigar Association of America estimated that 9.05 billion cigars were consumed nationally in 2005. However, only about 4.7% of these were premium cigars and the rest were machine-made. The dominant cigars in the U.S. are not Macanudo and Romeo y Julieta, but Swisher Sweets, Phillies and White Owl!
So, do premium cigars matter?
Yes, they do. After taste-testing the nation's leading machine-made brands which sell in the hundreds of millions, one can recognize that there is a place for grape juice and a place for fine wines.
The texture, solid feel and complexity of almost any handmade, long-filler cigar is a joy for the hand, lips and teeth after having smoked mass-market brands. And the brightness of flavor present in the best handmades - whether caramelized, creamy, spicy or peppery - is otherworldly in comparison.
Cigars are generally regarded as a luxury item. Premium, handmade cigars may take up only a small part of the market, but like their brethren in other industries - like Aston-Martin, Bentley, Bugatti, Ferrari, Rolls-Royce and others in the automotive world - there is a clear difference. Vive la difference!
Researchers at the Wm. Wrigley, Jr. Company - makers of Wrigley's Spearmint, Doublemint and Juicy Fruit gums among many other products - have identified the chemical elements which cause so-called "cigar smoker's breath."
The findings were presented to colleagues of the Division of Agricultural Food & Chemistry during the recent national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco.
"Now we know what the most offending compounds are," noted Russell Bazemore, a Wrigley chemist, "so ideally we will be able to research a solution that will lessen their impact on breath. At Wrigley, we're trying to use good science to uncover some of these long-standing mysteries. We're confident that these lingering after-aromas that we're all accustomed to are a problem that can be resolved."
Cigarmint gum, anyone?
Short fillers: A Missouri appeals judge allowed a measure onto the state ballot in November that would increase cigarette taxes from 17 cents a pack to 97 cents and raise taxes on cigars and other tobacco products from 10% of the wholesale price to 30%. A similar measure went down to defeat in 2002 by a 51-49% margin . . . A Georgia couple, irritated by the state's 2005 smoking ban on restaurants designed to protect children from secondhand smoke now operate the Smoker's Café in Dublin, Georgia and allow smoking . . . but no one under the age of 18, as required by the law! . . . In an indication of the expansion of the Cuban tobacco industry, a tiny factory in the eastern province of Las Tunas called Vidal Navas Fernandez will produce, in only its second year, about one million cigars for export. Previously, factories in the area had produced only cigars for domestic consumption that are generally of lower quality . . . find our latest tasting review, of five blends of the revamped Oliva line, in 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.
