Welcome one and all to our blogging of the 75th Annual RTDA Show.  For those of you who are not familiar, the RTDA is our industries biggest trade show where all of the manufacturer, cigar companies, and retailers/e-tailers meet under one roof.  This is usually the time of year when most companies will release their latest and greatest products.  From the buzz I have already heard, this year should prove to be one of the most interesting that we have seen so far.  We’ll keep you posted via the blog with whats going on.

So, we got in last night.  A nice quick flight from Phoenix.  Our hotel is right across the Street from the convention center, which should prove convenient after our evenings of debauchery.  You see, a lot of manufacturers have dinners and or parties, so they keep us pretty busy in the evenings.

Last night we had a very interesting time.  We invited Pepin Garica and the El Rey de Los Habanos crew to dinner at Morton’s the Steakhouse.  It was quite an interesting table.  Out of the eleven of us at the table,  four of spoke English, two were able to translate, and a few us spoke broken English or Spanish.  The rest spoke no English at all; only Spanish.  As I’m sure you can imagine it was quite an entertaining evening.  It was particularly interesting ordering dinner.  A lot of commotion, translating and all but we finally got it done. Thank goodness that Mike Villaplana wa there to translate the entree presentation.  If he hadn’t been able to translate, I’m not sure what time in the evening we would have gotten dinner!

It was a tremendous evening and Pepin promised us he had some very exciting things to show us at the show.  We stopped by his booth first thing in morning and we were not disappointed.  The first item he introduced us to was the Don Pepin Garcia Series JJ Maduro made in his Miami factory.  It is the same core medium to full bodied blend as the Natural JJ, but this time with a chocolate brown, dark and oily Corojo Maduro wrapper.  It was dynamite smoke.  This should prove to be another outstanding edition to the Don Pepin line.  The second smoke he showed us was the El Centurion. This smoke is hand made in his Nicaraguan factory, Tabacalera Cubana using Criollo ‘98 binder and Corojo ‘99 wrapper.  It is medium to full and bursting with flavor.  It is absolutely his best Nicaraguan effort to date.  We have high hope for this item as well.

We love searching out the boutique manufacturers.  That’s how we found Pepin in the first place.  We came across a very interesting cigar called Canimao. What really caught our eye was they had silky smooth, beautiful wrapper leaves.  The owner of the company, Mel Gonzales, is  very passionate man.  After speaking with him for a few minutes, we could tell that he has a deep love and understanding for tobacco.  He truly has a special product.  His cigars are beautifully constructed and his pride shows in his products.  They are all naked (no cellophane) to ensure the cigars to continue to age in the boxes.  They are a solid medium bodied smoke with excellent construction, an even burn, and a nice solid ash.

Next we stopped by the booth of our old friend Phillip Wynn of Felipe Gregorio.  This man is fantastic at breaking the mold and creating truly unusual products.  We saw a new line extension of Pelo de Oro line calle the arrow.  It’s exactly as it sounds.  The cigar starts off at a nice 46 or so ring gage.  it maintains this shape till about half way up and then it begins to taper to a point and topped off with a nice flag.  We also saw his latest addition to the Power line, this being called the Art of Power.  This product is really unique as it utilizes two wrapper leafs and the cigars are all unique shapes.  They are both excellent smokes.

Later we stopped by the General Cigar Co. booth to see what they had in store for us this year.  They had a few new releases that should prove to be fairly interesting.  The first one is called Stradivarius. This is a super premium smoke with a super premium price.  Pricing for this beauty will be between $30 and $34.  It is expensive, but these cigars feature a 15 year old Connecticut shade wrapper and each cigar comes in its own cedar coffin.  Now we come back down to earth a bit with the new Hoyo de Tradicion. I’m very excited by this new offering.  General is using the traditional Cuban art work on this little dynamo.  Retail pricing should be about $5 a stick, slightly more palatable to the regular smoker.  It uses a Honduran Rosado wrapper leaf that is simply magnificent.  It is a medium bodied smoke with a tremendous amount of flavor.  Their other new release is the Don Tomas Sungrown. This one again is back down to earth (thankfully) priced at about $4-$5 a piece.  It is a Honduran puro that is a solid medium-to-full body with rich and satisfying flavors.

Our last stop of the day was by the CAO booth.  These guys have to be the most creative marketers in the business.  This year they are creating some interesting line extensions as well as a new release the CAO American. The American is their last entry in the country series.  This distinct product should be priced along the same lines as their Brazilia and Italia cigars.  What makes this unique is the two wrappers they use on this cigar.  It uses a Connecticut grown Broadleaf maduro wrapper with a thin line of Connecticut grown Shade wrapper.  Another home run in my opinion from the CAO guys and gals.  They also have a special CAO Sopranos gift box and new Limited edition.  Additionally, they are releasing the CAO Maduro 10th anniversary.  Finally, they are releasing new aluminum tubes in the Gold, Brazilia and Italia lines.

Well that’s all for today.  we’re going to head out to dinner, cruise to the General Cigar party and then head back to the hotel to recharge our batteries for another full day.  Till then…

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