The Syndicate and Rare is Back by Frank Seltzer
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
When you hear Syndicate, you often think of an old Cagney or Edward G. Robinson movie…maybe that is why the newest cigar group is called Sindicato, which is an amalgamation of top cigar retailers, including a former president of the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers. Sindicato Cigar Group LLC was officially lanched on January 16th, but this past week, the group announced its new president (possibly the worst kept secret in the business). Jim Colucci was named as the presdent and CEO of the company.
Colucci previously was the executive v.p. of sales and marketing for Altadis USA and was the mover behind such brands as Romeo y Julieta Reserva Real, Warlock, Frank Llaneza 1961 and Siglo among others. The goal of Sindicato is to create new national brand cigars specifically for the participating retailers. According to Cigar Aficionado, the group was created by Abe Dabaneh who has an internet radio show kiss my ash and owns the Smoke Inn chain in South Florida; Jeff Borysiewicz, founder of Corona Cigar in Orlando; Gary Pesh, president of Old Virginia Tobacco company and former IPCPR president; Rob Roth of Nice Ash Cigars and Dan Jenuwine from Quality Fresh Cigars.
Colucci left Altadis in July 2011 and had a non-compete. At last year’s IPCPR show, Colucci (after his non-compete was up)was hinting about getting back into the business and even gave me a test blend to check out. The company plans to release their cigars at this year’s IPCPR trade show in Vegas.
Rare is Back
Punch Rare Corojo is back. Every year, General Cigar releases a batch of the cigars and this year, in addition to the usual 7 sizes, there is a new Perfecto at 7” x 48. The Punch Rare Corojo usually is in shops until around the end of May when they are all sold out.
They have been released every year since 2001…before that the lack of wrapper caused the cigar line to disappear for a while. (Actually the original Punch Rare Corojo was a flop. It came out when Dan Blumenthal and Frank Llaneza were running Villizon sometime in the 70s. The original Rare Corojo had a sandy Connecticut wrapper on it…it did not sell because it was too mild for Punch smokers. Enter a guy named Lew Rothman (you know JR Cigars). He knew Frank had all that Connecticut wrapper and tobacco so he bought it, made it a JR private label and named it after a pen….Excalibur by Hoyo de Monterrey. Today the cigars are nothing like those originals, just thought you might want some history.)
This year’s release uses an Ecuadoran Sumatra wrapper with reddish hue. The Binder is Connecticut Broadleaf and the fillers are Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan tobaccos. Retail price for the Punch Rare Corojo is $4.79 to $7.39. According to Gue Martinez