What’s going on?
Frank Seltzer
This is my first post for the JR blog. I am excited to have been asked to contribute but I may be unfamiliar to some of you. Since 2006, I have written for JR and Cigar Magazine on everything from small cigar companies like Marsh Wheeling, Finck, and F.D. Graves, to the biggies like General and Altadis-and I’ve been smoking cigars for a whole lot longer than that. I’ve been lucky enough to visit many factories throughout the US and Latin America and to have made many good friends in the business. But before life as a cigar writer, I was in news so I’m used to immediate deadlines (with the magazine and catalogs, the deadlines do not allow for immediate postings because it takes a while to actually print the stuff. My goal here is to not only give you fun information but to also keep you up to date on the latest happenings in the industry and supply information that you can use to help defeat smoking bans in your community. Now onto the news.
Alan Willner
First up. General Cigar, maker of Partagas among others, this week has named a new Vice President of Marketing. His name is Alan Willner. He comes to General Cigar from Starr Hill Brewery, where he was president and CEO. Starr Hill is an award winning craft brewery and partner of Anheuser-Busch. He also has worked with Coors and Nabisco. Bottom line he has about 20 years in consumer marketing. General president Dan Carr says Willner will help General further define their brands and get more customer engagement. He will be in charge of marketing, PR, events and Club Macanudo in New York.
Alejandro Martinez & Jose Blanco
By now, many of you know about the move of Jose Blanco from La Aurora to Joya de Nicaragua as Senior Vice President. Blanco has been with Grupo Leon since 1980 and retired from the company this summer as VP of Sales for La Aurora. Jose was known to many of you through his regular visits to stores and his blending seminars. Jose is a passionate life-long cigar smoker and loves playing with tobaccos. What you may not know, is that Jose is now working on a new cigar for Joya de Nicaragua. Dr. Alejandro Martinez-Cuenca, the owner of Joya which also is Nicaragua’s oldest cigar company, says he and Jose are working in the company’s Esteli factory developing a new cigar for next year. Martinez-Cuenca says already they have tasted more than 70 blends. Adds Alejandro, “This is an exciting time for the company which traditionally has been using primarily Nicaraguan tobaccos and now with Jose’s knowledge of Dominican tobaccos we look forward to expanding our offerings.” The new cigar– as yet unnamed and undecided on the blend–most likely will carry the names of Blanco and Martinez-Cuenca. It will be not as strong as the company’s Antano series instead it will be more medium bodied but with full flavor.
PASSINGS
Edgar Cullman, Sr. of General Cigar fame, also passed away in late August at the age of 93. Cullman and his family were long involved in the cigar business, building General Cigar, which they bought in 1961, into a major player. Cullman was the force behind General’s first premium cigar Macanudo. The Cullman family ran General Cigar until 2005 when its sale to Swedish Match was completed.
Dan Blumenthal, one of the partners in Villazon, also died in August. He was 94. Blumenthal and his partner Frank Llaneza were makers of great cigars like Punch, Excalibur and El Rey del Mundo among many others. For more information about Dan’s contributions to the cigar business and for an article on the Cigarmaker to the Stars, look in the current JR catalog. What? You don’t have it? You can get it here.
Finally Smokin Joe Frazier–the hall of fame heavyweight champion–has died at age 67. He had been diagnosed with liver cancer in September and passed away on November 7. Frazier grew up in Philadelphia and was the first fighter to defeat Muhammad Ali. Said Ali in a statement, “The world has lost a great champion”. The name Smokin Joe did not come from cigars, but the champ apparently did enjoy the leaf as written about in Dave Savona’s blog from 2009.
