Cigars in Dante’s Inferno?
It takes capital, guts and some industry knowledge to design and launch a brand of cigars. Some retailers want to surpass just selling sticks and the more adventurous of them invest their own capital and enter the production side. One retailer in the DC area did just that and launched the Dante brand, named after Dante’s Divine Comedy where the nine circles of Inferno (Italian for hell) are...
This Julius Caesar is from Tampa.
We have all seen those pictures from the late 1800’s – well-dressed men smoking “fine” cigars wherever they were. Cigars and brandy in the drawing room after dinner was a social tradition. Back then Tampa was the cigar capital of the US. Meanwhile in 1895 in Cleveland, Hungarian immigrant JC Newman was rolling his own brand of cigars for the locals. Then in 1954 he moved the operations...
A Crazy Cigar From Ventura
Ventrua Cigars appears to be new on the cigar scene but the truth is that its parent, Kretek International, has been selling to thousands of cigar stores and tobacco outlets for decades. Kretek’s main product is clove cigarettes and Ventura is their official branching into premium label cigars. You may also know Kretek for their Djeep lighters. The Ventura moniker comes from the name of the...
An Extra From Azan
Roberto Pelayo Duran has a long career in the cigar industry, partly in production and partly with the distribution organization of Cubatabaco, the Cuban state tobacco company. This distribution organization, Habanos S.A. formed in 1994, controls the promotion, distribution, and export of Cuban cigars and other tobacco products worldwide for Cubatabaco. In 2000, Altadis purchased a 50%...
Psyko 7 Review and Contest
I have been reviewing cigars for may years now and can’t remember a more interesting review. Ventura Cigar is a company that has been making interesting cigars for the past few years. Based in the San Fernando Valley, just outside of LA their cigars have an LA sort of vibe. There is so much activity and new cigars at the annual cigar show, that I’ll be smoking new cigars for...
There is a Full Bodied Ligero Capadura for You
According to the tobacconist university glossary, capadura is Spanish for the “second” growth plant leaves. After the tobacco plant has been harvested/primed, the stalk is trimmed down and leaves allowed to grow again. This practice was common in Cuba where the farmers would use the second growth for their own consumption. Reportedly, this practice is most common with Pelo De Oro tobacco...
