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 6, Number 3 (Edition 204 12/10/16)

Feature of the Week: Espinosa Cigars Shifts Production for Majority of 601 Line to New A.J. Fernandez Factory

This week came some surprising news that Espinosa Cigars is moving the majority of its production for the 601 line to A.J. Fernandez’s new factory in Ocotel. We got the details here.

Cigar of the Year Countdown

For the seventh consecutive year, Cigar Coop is unveiling its daily Cigar of the Year Countdown. This is our (near) daily countdown of the Top 30 Cigars of the year for 2016.  This year there was a delayed start, but the Countdown officially began on December 9th.

News Recap

Legislative News

  • Senate Bill S. 441: S. 441 is the Senate Bill to gain an exemption from the FDA on premium cigars. This week,  Chuck Grassley [R-Iowa] was added.  The total sponsor count is now 22.
  • House Bill HR 662: H.R. 662 is House Bill to gain an exemption from the FDA on premium cigars. This week, no new co-sponsors were added.  The total sponsor count remains at 170.
  • 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 were added. The total number of sponsors remains at 78.
  • FDA: The FDA announced a six month grace period through June 30, 2017 for cigar companies to register and submit their product lists.
  • Federal: This week word came out that July 28, 2017 will be the Court Date where Oral Arguments will be held in the CAA / CRA / IPCPR lawsuit agains the FDA. Meanwhile the proposed cigar exemption in the House Appropriations Bill was overridden by a Continuing Resolution.

Assessments

Agile Cigar Reviews

Stogie Geeks

For Episode 212, we welcomed back Phil Zanghi of Debonaire House. For our Debonaire Ideal, we covered Rums. Our Hot Topic focused on “Methodology for Cigar of the Year”.  Finally we had our Stogies of the Week which included: