Last week came word of the hiring of Sean Williams as the Brand Ambassador for one of General Cigar Company’s most prestigious brands, Cohiba. The news came as a big surprise to many in the cigar industry, but to this author, it’s clear it’s part of a bigger story at General – one of change. It is a change that continues to evolve, but […]
For the past three years on Cigar Coop, we have given out Factory of the Year Awards. We have divided this up into Small/Single Operation and Large/Multi-Faceted Operation. For the past two years, 2015 and 2016, the award for Small/Single Operation has gone to Erik Espinosa’s La Zona Factory located in Esteli, Nicaragua. Last month, […]
Back in February, I had the opportunity to tour the operations of JRE Tobacco Company. Run by tobacco industry icon Julio R. Eiroa and his son Justo, JRE Tobacco Company is a true vertical integrated crop to shop operation – ranging in everything from growing tobacco, processing tobacco, cigar production, and handling distribution. Today, I take […]
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 […]
