The 2015 IPCPR Trade Show would be the fourth one for 262 Cigars. 2015 had already been a busy year for the company as it introduced its fifth line – Peacefield. In addition, the company released another lancero – this time for the Allegiance line. Both of these offerings were released earlier this year, but were showcased prominently at the trade show.
Peacefield is 262’s bundle offering. As company President Clint Aaron explained to Cigar Coop, “We released Peacefield in the Spring, and it has been well received thus far.The bundle market is a new market for us, and we weren’t sure how the product would be received. We wanted to make sure we accomplished a few things while offering a great cigar. Keep it simple. Make is sexy. Have a great price point. Offer some sort of a variety. I think that we’ve been able to achieve that. Peacefield comes in toro and churchill and is offered in Connecticut, Maduro, and Habano.”
Those who follow Aaron and 262 Cigars should not be surprised at the release of a lancero line extension. The 262 Allegiance Lancero joins the 262 Paradigm and 262 Revere as lines with lancero offerings. As Aaron explained to us, ” As you know, my life mission is to turn every shop in America into a lancero shop. We did a soft launch of the lancero before the show and really wanted to showcase the blend in this vitola. The blend just pops in this size.”
262 Allegiance made its debut in 2014 and it became the second Brazilian Mata Fina wrapped line joining 262 Paradigm. As Aaron pointed out, “folks hear Brazilian Mata Fina and automatically think it’s going to be a Paradigm remix. It’s not; it’s totally different cigar. It’s a natural wrapper and is comprised of mainly Nicaraguan tobacco. Whereas the Paradigm uses a maduro wrapper and contains Colombian, Honduran, and Nicaraguan tobacco.”
Aaron also told us that quality control was a big focus for 2015 and because of that, he didn’t want to push the envelope with a new release at the show. “Last year on our launch we had a couple issues with the wrapper cracking on the Allegiance, so this year we decided to focus on maintaining a high level of QC and making things right with our retailers and customers. We didn’t think the timing was right to release a new blend at the show.”
Aaron did hint that over the next few months, there could be some new projects saying, “we have a few tricks up our sleeves for this Fall and Spring”
