TV and Cigars and More Stealing by Frank Seltzer
T-V shows and cigars have become a thing. Quesada came out with the Heisenberg in honor the show Breaking Bad last year, but there is no official tie in, just that some of the younger Quesadas are fans of the program. (The main character on the show, if you haven’t seen it, is Walter White who is a chemistry teacher but operates as a bad guy under the name Heisenberg which is also the name of a German Physicist who came up with the Uncertainty Principle in Quantm Mechanics.)
The first official show cigar I remember was when CAO had the Sopranos cigar? It was a few years ago but that was one of the first show themed cigars I can remember. (That is if you don’t count Ernie Kovacs and Dutch Masters or George Burns and El Productos.)
Just Ducky
You probably already know about the Duck Dynasty cigar that came out at this year’s IPCPR show. It is called the Duck Commander and is made by Ted’s Cigars.
The thing is the boys from Duck Dynasty are on a roll. The premier of their fourth season recorded 11.8 million viewers, which set a record for a non fiction cable t-v series. In the meantime, the boys have multiple books in the works and will even release a Christmas record called Duck the Halls. So why shouldn’t they have a cigar?
The cigar itself comes in a glass tube, perfect if you want to throw it in a bag when you are hunting. It is a toro measuring 6 x 50 with an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper over Dominican Piloto Cubano binder and fillers include U-S broadleaf, Dominican Piloto Cubano, Dominican Habano and Dominican Criollo 98. It is not a strong cigar, rather is it creamy and mild. They cost about $6.50.
Sons & Cigars
According to Cigar Aficionado, the Duck boys won’t be the only show with its own cigar.
Through a licensing partnership between Twentieth Century Fox’s Consumer Products division and Meier & Dutch cigar distributors, Sons of Anarchy now has its own line of cigars, humidors and accessories.
The star of the show, Ron Perelman is a huge cigar fan and is usually seen smoking a cigar in almost every episode. If you don’t know, Sons of Anarchy is a program about a gun running motorcycle club and now is in its 6th season.
“The production team at Fox was already purchasing cigars from us for the show anyway,” said Stephen McDevitt, director of sales for Meier & Dutch. “So last year, 20th Century Fox actually contacted us to do a project like this. It was their idea.”
Officially called Sons of Anarchy by Black Crown, the new cigars will be adorned with the club’s ominous Grim Reaper symbol—a perfect replica of the biker’s patch found on the back of every member’s jacket in the show.
The cigar is a line extension of the Black Crown brand which the company owns and will be made at the ST Danli factory in Honduras. It will use an Ecuadorian Sumatran wrapper over Nicaraguan Criollo 98 binder and Nicaraguan fillers. It will come in 5 sizes, Prospect at 4.5” x 60, Toro at 6” x 54, Gordo 6” x 60 and a Torpedo at 6.5” x 54. Retail is going to be between $5.50 to $6.50.
CA also says there will be a line of accessories out later this year.
Two 75-count humidors—one in saddle-bag leather and one with metal corners—and a pewter ashtray look as though they’ve come straight out of the Sons of Anarchy clubhouse. They’ll retail for $200, $175 and $50, respectively. If you want to show your devotion to the Sons in public, a three-finger cigar case ($50) also dons the club’s Reaper symbol, as does the Xikar Xi4 cutter ($50).
So far it has not shown up on the show yet…but you know it will.
Thieves Strike Again
Back at the end of July we told you about some cigar thieves who stole a quarter of a million dollars worth of cigars from a South Florida warehouse. Well apparently it has happened again. This time to someone we know…Alec Bradley. On Satuday September 7th, around 630 in the morning thieves cut a hole into the roof of the company’s warehouse and loaded up pallets of cigars into a stolen truck and got away. Police are investigating and Alec Bradley posted about this on Facebook yesterday afternoon. The company asks for people to be on the lookout for anyone suspicious selling their products.
More Taxes
I know many retailers will cheer this move, but it looks like Congress is going to try to impose an internet sales tax. I do not understand why a retailer based in say the east coast should have to pay Texas sales tax if they do not operate a store here. Nor should they have to pay usurious tobacco taxes. It simply rewards the moronic legislators who keep thinking that they can tax tobacco to death. (Hello New York).
This legislation should die, but in the meantime, you may want to contact your Senators and Representative and tell them taxing the Internet is a bad idea.
While you are at it, you might want to take another shot at your Congress people to ask them to support HR 124 and SB772that will protect the cigar industry from the FDA’s clutches. There is more talk from House Democrats who want the administration to put out new rules for e-cigs and cigars.
The group of legislators also sent a separate letter to Republican leaders on the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which Waxman is the top Democrat, requesting a hearing on the health risks posed by the tobacco products and the FDA’s authority to impose new rules.
The FDA, which oversees cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, has been working on regulations to expand its oversight to e-cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco, which are currently exempt from its rules.
They will keep pushing to put the FDA into our humidors, we MUST stop this. So far we have 124 sponsors for the House bill and 11 for the Senate. We still need more. Please do your part.
