1875 Romeo Y Julieta – Good, But With a Complicated Pedigree
Romeo and Juliet – would be lovers kept apart by differences between their families. The Romeo Y Julieta brand name/global market is no different. The non-US version is Cuban produced and sold outside the US by Habanos SA. Altadis produces the US version in the Honduras. Another complication is that Altadis also sells different Romeo Y Julieta cigars where the 1875 is after the name of...
Kuuts Has a Winner With the Placeres Reserva
Kuuts has their cigar factory in the Danli region of the Honduras where they make their Kuuts Nicaraguan, Placeres, Miro and Zapata brands. Although Kuuts has been selling in Europe for a long time, they entered the US market in 2013. At the 2014 IPCPR Kuuts gave me a Placeres Reserva 6 X 54 Colosos to review. The Placeres brand comes in 5 sizes and has a Habano Jalapa wrapper around a Costa...
Humidores Dominicanos reincarnates Faraon Tutankamon
Humidores Dominicanos registered to do business in Florida in the middle of 2013. Sometime later Humidores launched a brand called Cigar Factory where each of the blends was named after a Pharaoh and offered in various sizes. I first noticed them at the 2014 IPCPR where they gave me three blends to review – Tutankamon, Ramses and Esfinge. The Faraon Tutankamon was a 6 X 50 toro that had a...
Cuban Stock Has a New Chubby VP
Cuban Stock Cigar Company launched an addition to its Chubby line of large ring gauge cigars at the 2014 IPCPR in Las Vegas. The new line is called “Boss” and comes in 3 lofty title sizes – the Chairman (7 X 60), the CEO (6 X 56) and the VP (5.5 X 56). Yanev Levy, the founder of Cuban Stock Cigar Company and probably both its Chairman and CEO, gave me a VP to test. The Boss series uses a...
Ocean State Cigars Floats a New Maduro.
Rhode Island is home to Ocean State Cigars, a relative newcomer to the cigar making industry. Paul Joyal, founder and President of the company and active in the cigar industry itself for many years, launched his J Grotto line which, for 2014, included a new “Anniversary Maduro” series. This series uses a maduro fermented Connecticut broadleaf wrapper, Dominican Habano binder and fillers from...
SWAG Black Lavishes Big Flavor on a Robusto
Boutique Blends has 3 well-known brands – Aging Room, SWAG and Oliveros. I have enjoyed a number of Aging Room offerings and, at the 2014 IPCPR, Boutique Blends president Rafael Nodal provided me with one of their new creations, a SWAG Black. The Black comes in 4 sizes and the 5 X 54 robusto is called “Lavish”. The Lavish is promoted as a full bodied Dominican puro using tobacco aged for 8...
