Over the past few years, cigars produced in Costa Rica have performed extremely well on Cigar Coop as evidenced by the performance ratings over the years. When the opportunity presented itself to visit the Tabacos de Costa Rica factory located in Costa Rica, I was quite intrigued to find out why these cigars were consistently […]
This year Cigar Coop celebrated its ten-year anniversary. Late in 2019, we completed the last Cigar Coop Cigar of the Year Countdown for the Decade of 2010 through 2019. One thing that I wanted to look at was how cigar companies performed overall on the Countdowns done during the decade. This was covered by two […]
In 2020, Cigar Coop is unveiling some new performance rating categories and today we are unveiling two: Impacts of Sponsored Cigars on Scoring and Impacts of Samples Used on Scoring. For as long as I have been involved with cigar media, the two things always thrown up to me are “sponsors compromise ratings” and “free […]
Altadis was one of the “Big Four” companies that was not planning on attending the 2020 PCA Trade Show. For the most part, Altadis has been gradually rolling out new products throughout 2020 as opposed to putting all of its energy into the summer months. Altadis also seemed quite prepared handling the impacts of the […]
This past summer LH Cigars put out a couple of cigar releases with a common theme: “Ecuadorian Vuelta Abajo.” It’s a tobacco leaf that owner Nick Syris has considered one of his favorites. Back in 2017, Syris worked with this wrapper on a cigar that he would collaborate with “Island Jim” Robinson on known as […]
Over the past few years, Tabacalera William Ventura has become a rising star in terms of factories in the Dominican cigar business. A few years ago, Henderson Ventura, the son of William Ventura teamed up with Swiss entrepreneur Marcel Knobel to launch ADV & McKay Cigars. The company focused on the European market for a […]
The past the annual IPCPR Trade Shows were a little different for Andre Farkas and Viaje Cigar Company than for most other companies. For the most part, Viaje’s business model is built on small-batch releases that are sent to retailers on (almost a) monthly basis. As a result, the trade show isn’t a place where […]
One of the biggest collaborations to happen in 2020 was the one between Daniel Marshall and Carlos “Carlito” Fuente of Arturo Fuente Cigars. Daniel Marshall is known for its high-end luxury products and in particular its high-end humidor collection. At the same time, Daniel Marshall has released cigars in his portfolio. To commemorate the […]
MoyaRuiz, it’s a comeback. It’s been a quiet past two years for MoyaRuiz as the company has only done a few small batch projects. For 2020, MoyaRuiz is introducing a new line extension to its core line – and has made plans to bring back one of its most successful limited editions to date. […]
For a while it did seem as though La Aurora and its U.S. distributor Miami Cigar & Company might not have a U.S. release this summer. This was one of the bigger surprises because when it has come to summertime and Trade Show releases, La Aurora and Miami Cigar & Company have always been at […]
