Friday March 24th was a very sad day for the entire cigar industry as Avo Uvezian, the beloved man behind the Avo Cigars’ brand passed away at age 91. As word came out about Avo’s death came tributes from the cigar industry, cigar enthusiasts sharing their own personal recollections of Avo, and many breaking out their […]
Last December, I penned an article entitled “The Myth of Rudy Giuliani Saving the Cigar Industry“. In my 6 1/2 years of owning and operating Cigar Coop, it easily was the most controversial article I wrote. Shortly after the 2016 Presidential Election, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was being anointed by some as “the […]
Earlier this year, I paid a visit to General Cigar Company’s operations in the Dominican Republic. General Cigar Company is one of the largest handmade premium cigar companies in the world. It would not only be this author’s first visit to General Cigar’s operations, but also this author’s first visit to the Dominican Republic. The […]
About four years ago, master blender A.J. Fernandez consolidated his factory operations which were scattered across the city of Esteli to the new, massive Tabcaelera Fernandez. Since then, Fernandez has continued to grow and expanded his operation. This led Fernandez to acquire a new factory located about 50 miles north of Esteli just outside the Totogalpa and […]
In 2007, the Corojo farm owned by the Eiroa family in the Jamastran Valley of Honduras began a program called Bayer CropScience. Developed by the Bayer Corporation, CropScience is a program of best practices for agriculture and manufacturing that promote concepts such as environmental, consumable crop safety, bio-friendly pesticides, industrial safety, and biosecurity. The Eiroas would […]
The Cigar of the Year Countdown is a quantitative analysis of the best cigars of 2016. Other than the fact the cigar must be a box worthy cigar to qualify for the list, when it comes to price that is not factored into the Countdown. In this exercise, I take a look at the list […]
Our 2016 Year in Review coverage continues with a look at how the various cigar brands did on Cigar Coop for 2016. This is a statistical analysis based on the average numerical score of all cigars assessed on Cigar Coop. It is not meant to be necessarily an award, but a look at how scoring went, and […]
On Friday January 20, Cigar Coop named the late Carlos Fuente Sr its 2016 Cigar Industry Person of the Year Award recipient. The Person of the Year Award is awarded to a person(s) in the cigar industry that has made a significant impact over the course of a year or from a lifetime achievement perspective. This year, we […]
The Cigar Coop Person of the Year Award is awarded to a person(s) in the cigar industry that has made a significant impact. This could be over the course of a year or from a lifetime achievement perspective. For 2016, we give the award posthumously to Carlos Fuente, Sr. Fuente, Sr passed away on August 5, 2016 at the […]
Performance Rankings are our simple method statistical analysis of the numerical scores for all cigars assessed on Cigar Coop during the previous cigar year. We have expanded this to four categories including: Brand, Country of Origin, Single Shop Exclusives, and Vitolas. Today we take a look at the vitolas. For 2016, a total of 243 (down from […]
