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Los Angeles – First it was Mx2 in
2003, then the Cx2 in 2005.
Now it will be the Lx2 in 2008.
Ever-inventive C.A.O. will
debut its Lx2 – "ligero times two" as
its new blend for 2008 at the upcoming International
Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers Association convention
and trade show next month in Las Vegas, Nevada.
"Ligero," of course, is a type of
leaf which has strong taste qualities and is
generally used in the filler to provide flavor
for the blend. The C.A.O. Lx2 uses a Nicaraguan-grown
wrapper and a Honduran binder, combined with
two different types of ligero filler leaves:
one grown in the Dominican Republic and the other
in Nicaragua.
The Lx2 line will include three sizes to start,
all offered in boxes of 20. It will be quite
accessible in terms of pricing, with retail prices
set to range from $6 to $8 each, not including
local sales and tobacco taxes.
>> Davidoff of Geneva announced
its 2008 limited-edition blend for The
Griffin’s, the fifth consecutive
year in which a special-edition cigar has been
created for this brand.
The Griffin’s Special XXIV Edition is
a 5 1/2-inch by 52-ring torpedo made in the Dominican
Republic under the watchful eye of Hendrik
Kelner at the Tabadom complex
in Santiago. This year’s cigar features
an Ecuadorian-grown, Connecticut-seed wrapper,
Mexican-grown of Sumatra-seed binder and four
different Dominican-grown filler leaves. It has
a spicy note to it and is presented in individual
glass tubes in boxes of 10.
Only 3,500 boxes will be available in the U.S.
and a worldwide total of just 8,000 (80,000 cigars)
were produced. Pricing is $11 per cigar or $110
for the box of 10, not including local sales
or tobacco taxes.
>> Mike Chiusano’s DomRey
Cigar Co. has expanded enough to where
it has opened its own manufacturing facility
in the Dominican Republic.
The new DR Global factory makes
their newest releases: the Cusano 59
Rare Cameroon, Cusano Habano LXI Sun Grown and
the Cuvee Rouge and Cuvee
No. 151. The other Cusano and Cuvee
lines – Cusano 18, Cusano Corojo ‘97 and
their four bundled blends and the Cuvee
Blanc – continue to be manufactured
at Tabadom’s Occidential Cigars factory,
also in Santiago in the Dominican Republic.
>> The chairman and chief executive of Swisher
International, William Ziegler III,
died on Friday, June 13, at age 79.
A noted philanthropist in the Long Island, N.U.
area, Ziegler’s family acquired Swisher
in 1966 and merged it into its privately-held American
Maize Products Co. He continued to run
American Maize until 1995, but has remained chairman
and chief executive of Swisher. During Ziegler’s
tenure, the Swisher Sweets brand – introduced
in 1958 – became one of the best-known
in the country and is now sold in about 60 countries
worldwide.
>> Short fillers: The nearly-$10 billion
stock rights issue circulated by Imperial
Tobacco to its existing shareholders
sold out almost completely with 97.2 percent
of all Imperial shareholder taking the company
up on the offer. Share purchasers were able to
obtain one new share for every two shares they
already owned by paying about 67 percent of the
current trading price. The cash raised will be
used to pay for the acquisition of Altadis,
S.A., completed earlier this year. .
. find our latest tasting review, of the three
styles of the Tabacalera Perdomo ESV ‘91 plus
summer favorites Old School and Randello,
in our News & Views archives for June 20.
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Heard in the Humidor is a
publication of Perelman, Pioneer & Company of
Los Angeles, California, USA. Copyright 2007;
All rights reserved.
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