A New President, New Cigars and a bad idea by Frank Seltzer
Villiger Stokkebye – the U-S subsidiary of the 124 year old Swiss cigar company—is undergoing some changes.
Erik Stokkebye, the company president resigned last week and Roy MacLaren has been named as his replacement. Villiger Stokkebye also is losing its namesake pipe tobacco. Peter Stokkebye pipe tobacco will no longer be distributed by the company starting in April. ST-Group, which owns General Cigar and the worldwide rights to Stokkebye, bought another distributor in the U-S and is moving the pipe tobacco to them. MacLaren says Villiger is working with other pipe tobacco companies to bring in replacements for the Stokkebye.
MacLaren takes over Villiger with 30 years in the industry. Roy most recently was VP of sales for Beach Cigar Group, makers of Gurkha. Asked about what is in store for the company, MacLaren said first the company name will be changing, as Villiger drops the Stokkebye to become Villiger North America.
Roy’s experience is in line with premium cigars not only with Gurkha but also with Davidoff. He says his goal is to expand Villiger’s footprint in the premium arena. Villiger has several premium cigars in the market today but is primarily known for its little cigars. The company sells 1.2 billion little cigars a year.
MacLaren says he intends to be able to introduce a new Villiger premium cigar at the industry trade show in August, and then add to existing lines. “My focus here is to bring the best quality premium hand rolled product to Villiger North America that I can find.” Roy will be involved with the blending and other factories as he gets Villiger on the map in the premium cigar segment.
Rare Cigars back
General Cigar has announced its Punch Rare Corojo is back on the market. Every year, the company releases a limited batch of the cigars…making them rare. The Punch Rare Corojo uses Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan filler bound with a Connecticut Broadleaf binder. The wrapper is a dark Sumatran seed grown in Ecuador.
The Rare Corojo will be sold through the end of May. In addition, the company is releasing a special 10th Anniversary Rare Corojo—a 5×50–which will be available until supplies run out. If you have not had them, the Rare Corojos have a great rich and spicy flavor . They were started in 2001 as a special limited edition to Punch by legendary cigar blender Frank Llaneza and they come out but once a year. Get them while you can.
Short Run
Speaking of limited cigars, Ernie Carrillo says the company has begun shipping the new 2012 Short Run. Ernesto, Ernie’s father, likes to play with limited tobaccos and as a result he offers two limited editions a year, the Short Run that comes out in the Spring and the Edicion Limitada which is in the fall. This year, the short run is a combination of the New Wave Connecticut wrapper over the filler and binder of the company’s Maduro core line. They should be showing up soon.
Kalifornia town with bad idea.
Rocklin, California is near Sacramento. And one moron there had the idea that the town should ban smoking everywhere. You see, one family was upset that their neighbor smoked on his front lawn. The smoke wafted onto their property and they were upset so they went to city hall and tried to get the offending smoker banned. City officials were all over this trampling of private property….until they got a little publicity on it then they did what most bullies do, they ran away.
Rocklin City Manager Rick Horst, originally told CBS13 the city was considering the ban. However after the story ran and was picked up by a prominent website [Drudge] Horst contacted CBS13 and said the city has ‘no intention of considering the matter’.”
This did make for some fun on the Fox show The Five where cigar smoker and former Democratic Presidential campaign manager Bob Beckel sided with Conservative Greg Gutfeld…watch to the end.
