Weather, Heavenly and More by Frank Seltzer

Normally I don’t do weather reports. But there are two things of note.  First is that this morning it is a wonderful 65 degrees in Dallas this morning (after 100 plus degree temperatures last week)  and second there was a tornado in Connecticut yesterday.

The tornado was in a big thunderstorm that moved across that state and caused a lot of damage, but fortunately no deaths.

What makes this storm an issue for a cigar blog is that Connecticut shade grown tobacco is in the fields in ..yup Connecticut.  High winds and heavy rains, let alone a tornado, could really hurt the crop.  Of course the newspapers and tv stations don’t care about the tobacco crop, but Cigar Aficionado does ( and they live a lot closer to that area than I do.)  So far, Dave Savona and Greg Mottola have confirmed some damage to the fields—some of the netting that covers the plants has ended up in trees and power lines—but cannot say how the crops were affected yet.  If the netting is gone and there were heavy downpours you can bet it was not good for the crop.  CA will have more information but lets hope this was confined to a small area of Connecticut.

 

Must be Heaven

 

Heavenly Angels

 

The Heavenly Cigar company is known for having “angels” at company events—especially the trade show.   Founded by Heather Phillips back in the  mid-90s, she had become entranced with cigars while working as first a cocktail waitress and then assistant manager of  a Naples, Florida cigar bar called Heaven Cigar Bar. When the cigar boom ended so did the cigar bar and Heather was out of a job, but she got the name from the bar and started her own cigar company—Heavenly Cigars.  If you don’t know them it is probably because most of the Heavenly lines are flavored smokes.  Things like Vanilla, Cherry, Grape, Rum and even Chocolate Fudge.  The company also makes a Red Lion line of premium cigars.  Heather has been outsourcing a bit over the lasts few years, first she let Davidoff have distribution rights about 2 years ago.  Last week, Drew Estate, maker of ACID among others, announced it has purchased the company and will have the Heavenly brand as part of its booth at the upcoming trade show.  According to the release no changes are planned for the Heaven line up.

 

“We are extremely excited about this acquisition and look forward to building the Heavenly cigar brand further across the U.S.,” said Michael Cellucci, President of Drew Estate. “We believe that with our expertise and innovation we have the ability to fully realize the potential of the Heaven line of products” Cellucci later added.

 

Speaking of Davidoff

Two weeks ago, we reported that Davidoff was going all in on cigars, focusing on its traditional White Label line, along with Zino, Camacho, Avo, The Griffin.  Yesterday, the company announced it was dropping out of the cigarette vending business it had in Switzerland. The company sold its operations to another Swiss company effective July 1.

Smoking to Relax, you’re wrong

Ok lots of people smoke cigars to relax.  Often, it helps you feel better and calm down.  But in the ever continuing war against anything tobacco, Gallup is out with a new report that says smokers have a worse emotional health.  According to the study smokers scored 71 while non smokers hit 82.  Wow. So what is this index?

The index is based on whether survey participants did a number of things “yesterday,” such as learning or doing interesting things, feeling stress, sadness, anger and worry, and being treated with respect.

Gee ya think smokers get treated with respect by the antis? And I am sure not being able to smoke anywhere and wen you do light up someone usually is in your face screaming about the evils of tobacco any wonder why there is stress?

- Far more smokers experience daily stress than nonsmokers, with 50 percent of smokers reporting feeling stressed “yesterday” compared with 37 percent of nonsmokers. Similarly, 40 percent of smokers said they experienced worry “yesterday” compared with 28 percent of nonsmokers.

- Smokers are more likely to be diagnosed with clinical depression: 26 percent versus 15 percent.

Wow this must be science.  So when you sit back, light up and relax, you are only fooling yourself.  Heh.  But maybe smokers would have less stress, anger and worry if we could just be left alone with our cigars and our thoughts.

 

How many?

 

Speaking of health….I don’t know if you saw it but on Turner Classic Movie channel last night they had Conan hosting clips of Johnny Carson Tonight show interviews.  The one that caught my attention was the one with George Burns.  He was 93 at the time of the show and Burns had his trademark cigar during the interview. (Imagine the outrage today if that happened.)  Anyway Carson asked Burns how many cigars he smokes a day.  Burns said between 11 and 15.  Carson then asked what does your doctor say.  Burns shot back, my doctor is dead.  In case you are wondering George smoked El Productos exclusively (reportedly at least 250 per month.). George lived another 7 years and passed away at age 100.  He smoked cigars and drank and was working into his late 90s.   Stuff that “research”.

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