The Cigar Industry Report is a one stop place to catch up on the activity here at Cigar Coop and Stogie Geeks. It is a combination of our news reports, cigar reviews, and assessment updates we do throughout the week. We will also recap what happened on our Stogie Geeks show. Finally, each week we will look back at Cigar Coop history. Look for this report every Saturday morning at 8am Eastern time.

Cigar Industry Report: Volume 4, Number 43 (Edition 140 9/19/15)

Feature of the Week: Ditka Game Time Coming in October

While Camacho’s Ditka brand was quiet at IPCPR, there still was an ace up the sleeve for this brand.  This week the Ditka Game Time, the seventh blend released under Camacho’s Mike Ditka brand was announced. This will be another limited production release that will be shipping to retailer’s this October.

News and Previews 

  • Altadis: The company will partner with Prime Cigar to open a cigar bar in Miami, Florida. This is scheduled to open in 2016.
  • Drew Estate: The company is planning another collaboration with Shady Records called the Shady Southpaw. This is due to be released in 2016. The company has also released six box-pressed line extensions to its various brands as lounge exclusives to Corona Cigar Company in Orlando, Florida.
  • Espinosa Cigars: The company has announced the availability of the long awaited Espinosa Especial.
  • Kafie 1901 Cigars: The company announced the long awaited Kafie 1901 Sumatra will be released in November.
  • La Zona: Erik Espinosa’s factory has created a brand for Twin Smoke Shoppe in Philadelphia called Renzulli.  The cigar was officially launched on September 18th.
  • L’Atelier Imports: The box-pressed version based on the L’Atelier brand has been renamed to LAT SEC.

Legislative News

  • Senate Bill S. 441: S. 441 is the Senate Bill to gain an exemption from the FDA on premium cigars.  This week, no new co-sponsors signed on. The total sponsor remains at 17.
  • House Bill HR 662: H.R. 662 is House Bill to gain an exemption from the FDA on premium cigars.  This week, one new co-sponsor signed on – Rep Mike Bishop [R-Michigan}  The total number of sponsor is now at 135.
  • House Bill 2058:  H.R. 2058 is the House Bill to change the effective date for cigars subject to FDA regulation from 2007 to 21 months following any proposed regulations are put into effect. This week, no new co-sponsors signed on.  The total number of sponsors remains at 27.
  • California: A series of anti-smoking bills that were passed by the State Senate were stalled in the State Assembly.
  • FDA: President Obama has nominated Robert Califf to be the next FDA Commissioner.

Assessments

Agile Cigar Reviews

Stogie Geeks

 

Reminder, we launched an all-new version of the Stogiegeeks.com web-site.  As such we have moved our lifestream feed back to be hosted on our own platform.

This past week, on Episode 156 we welcomed Tim Ferris of Defiant Whisky, who appeared in studio. Our Debonaire Ideal discussed sharing cigars with friends. The videos will be posted early next week.

Finally we did our Stogies of the Week which included:

On this date September 19th…