Our General Cigar booth tour continues with Rick Rodriguez in the CAO section. Rick tells us about the new CAO Nicaragua in this interview. The goal was to create a mellower, complex Nicaraguan cigar that everyone can enjoy, not just the bold spice bomb that is so common with cigars produced there. On the subject […]
IPCPR 2018: Cohiba
Sean Williams was bringing sexy back this year in the Cohiba section of the General Cigar booth. And sexy, it turns out, is named Spectre. Sean describes Spectre as his ultimate cigar geek project, that started with finding a 22 year old tercio (palm bark-wrapped bale) of piloto cubano in the factory. The blend includes […]
IPCPR 2018: Partagas
The next stop in the General Cigar booth was the Partagas section. Andres gave us the scoop on the packaging design updates (the blends remain the same) and the new Partagas Legend, which features a Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper, a Honduran binder, and Piloto Cubano filler.
IPCPR 2018: La Gloria Cubana
We got our tour of the General Cigar booth started with a stop at the La Gloria Cubana section. Yuri Guillen was ready with a big smile and details about the new “white box” La Gloria Cubana Esteli. It’s a budget friendly cigar retailing from $4.99 to $6.99 and features a blend of Nicaraguan and […]
IPCPR 2018: Gran Habano
George Rico catches us up on the latest Gran Habano news, including the new medium-bodied Blue in Green, the seriously aged Gran Reserva #5 2012, and the La Coleccion De Elegancia Corojo No. 5 Maduro, which is presented in a way reminiscent of the old Cuban sampler boxes from the 1980’s and 90’s.
IPCPR 2018: Mombacho
In the Mombaco booth this year, Claudio tells us about the second release of Cosecha, Cosecha 2013. It’s a proper vintage, a Nicaraguan puro that’s made exclusively with one year’s harvest of tobacco. All the tobacco from these cigars was harvested in 2013, as the name indicates. Because the cigars age so long, he tells […]
IPCPR 2018: Gurkha
We dropped by the Gurkha booth again this year, and Carlos Llaca Torano took us on a tour of the latest cigars. We started with the Ghost Gold extension to the popular Ghost line. It sports and Ecuadorian Habano Rosado wrapper and has a pigtail and closed foot. Next we look at the Marquesa, which […]
IPCPR 2018: Room 101
After a quick stop to enjoy some refreshing chicken in the Room 101 booth, we talked to Matt Booth about arcade games for enjoyment purposes, cigar time travel, and products for people to observe, consume, and purchase (in any order). Those products included The T., Farce, the Connecticut extension of Farce, the full-bodied Hit and […]
IPCPR 2018: Drew Estate – Tins, Isla Del Sol, and More
Drew Estate added a lot of new products to their catalog this year, and the highest concentration of new things were smaller cigars in tinned presentations. The Undercrown Sun Grown, Sweet Baby Jane, and Joya de Nicaragua Antaño 1970 are coming to tins. Dirty Fabien gives us the run down on the change from actual […]
IPCPR 2018: Drew Estate – Kentucky Fire Cured
You can’t not talk to Pedro Gomez when you visit the Drew Estate booth at IPCPR. This year Pedro was our tour guide through the world of Drew Estate’s Kentucky Fire Cured products. After a quick review of the fire curing process and previous releases, Pedro introduces us to the latest expansion, the Kentucky Fire […]