Herrera Esteli Arrives and more by Frank Seltzer
Willie rolling the Herrera Esteli
At this summer’s IPCPR trade show one of the best cigars on the floor was the new Herrera Esteli from Drew Estate maker of ACID and Liga Privada, Undercrown and others. The cigar is the product of Willie Herrera who left El Titan de Bronze in Miami to join Drew Estate a little over a year ago. Willie was charged with coming up with his own blend and it took a while but he did. Herrera says he went through like 70 different blends using all the tobaccos at his disposal, which is considerable because Drew Estate is the largest importer of tobacco in Nicaragua (and that doesn’t include the Nicaraguan tobacco!)
At the trade show, it was said the Herrera Esteli would be coming out in December. Well not so much. Now the cigars will roll out in January and February to select stores. The number of stores is dependent upon the amnount of tobacco and cigars that can be rolled. Willie says right now he has 10 pairs rolling his cigars and it is a slow process. But the results are worth it.
How do I know? Well, the cigar debuted at our Post Turkey Day Crawl. Willie and Fabien Ziegler from Drew Estate came in to unofficially launch the cigar at our event. (But we only had 50 boxes total for sale and they all went)
The Herrera Esteli uses a Habano-seed wrapper grown in Ecuador, over a Honduran binder and Nicaraguan fillers. It comes in four sixes, Short Corona at 5.25” x 46, Robusto at 5.5” x 52, Lonsdale at 6”x 44 and a Toro at 6.25” x 54. Willie says his favorite is the Toro mainly because he smoked the corona in like 15 minutes. Prices on the cigars range from $7.95 for the Short Corona up to $9.35 for the Toro.
Snake Eyes
Davidoff is announcing a cigar for next year…but not our year, the Chinese New Year. Come February, Davidoff will release a special lmited edition Year of the Snake edition cigar with accessories. The year of the snake—the chinese versionb not the cigar—is the sixth in the 12 signes of the Chinese zodiac and it is characterized as being wise and graceful. According to Davidoff
It is said that Snake-people like to possess the finer things in life.
The Snake cigar will be a Churchill at 7” x 48 with an Ecuador wrapper over San Vincente Seco and fillers of Piloto Seco, San Vincente Ligero, Piloto Viso, Hybrid 192 Seco/Yamasa. The price for this special cigar is $29.90 each.
Holiday
Speaking of holidays, you can check out the new JR Catalog for some gift ideas which while Tommy mentioned, he forgot to add we have a nice story on the Fuentes as they mark their 100th year. If you don’t have the catalog you can get it here.
Traveling
If you were flying over the past Thanksgiving holiday, you should know that the Center for Disease Control is now saying some airports are unhealthy. Why you ask? Gee because they actually have areas where smokers can light up. Now mind you, non-smokers don’t go into these rooms, and I remember them being pretty thick with smoke, but why does the CDC care? Because they are nannies. The weasels surveyed five big airports :
These airports are Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Denver International Airport and Salt Lake City International Airport. The CDC said these five airports account for 15 percent of all U.S. travel last year, with more than 110 million passengers traveling.
Two other large-hub airports, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, have designated smoking areas that are not accessible to the public, such as in private clubs.
I wanna know where the smoking area is in McCarran…didn’t see it when I was last there earlier this month. In the press release the CDC screamed:
“People who spend time in, pass by, clean or work near these rooms are at risk of exposure to secondhand smoke.”
If they spend time in these rooms…most likely they are SMOKING. Morons. Ever see a cigarette smoker having to run outside for a smoke before boarding a flight? Not a pretty picture.
PTDC Thanks
Last week, I told you about our 18th annual charity Post Turkey Day Crawl. Well this year’s was the most successful ever. Not only did we generate about $15,000 worth of cigar sales at a total of three stores, we also raised $2500 for charity. Not bad for about 45 people on what is generally a down day for cigar stores. We also collected cigars for the troops and around 500 smokes are headed to Afghanistan. All in all a very successful day.
The reason it was a success was due to support from the industry, I want to publicly thank Drew Estate, Altadis, General Cigars , The Quesadas and SAG, Alec Bradley ,Christian Eiroa and his new company, My Father Cigars, Maria Martin and the Pedro Martin Family cigars, Ernesto Perez Carrillo and EPC, La Palina, Miami Cigar, Joya de Nicaragua,Pete Johnson, AKA Cigars and Torano.
Without their help, the crawl would not have been a success. Thank you.
