May 24, 2013 (Tamarac, Fla.) — The East India Trading Company is proud to announce the upcoming cigar launch of ‘Rogue’. This much-anticipated brand will hit cigar stores nationwide this summer and be distributed by the Gurkha Cigar Group, Inc.
The mischievous Rogue is the third cigar release under the East India Trading Company and also the name of the top secret, ‘pre-release’ cigar that the company has been featuring at in-store events during the first quarter of 2013, which has received rave reviews from cigar enthusiasts.
“We are very excited about the upcoming launch of Rogue,” said Juan Lopez, National Sales Director of Gurkha Cigar Group. “We feel this is one of the most complex blends we have come out with to date and we are looking forward to this cigar going to market.”
Using a carefully selected blend of tobaccos, Rogue is a bold, box-pressed cigar with a pronounced complexity and richness on the finish, beautifully constructed with an un-finished foot. The blend features a golden Ecuadorian, Habano wrapper, combining a rare Ecuadorian binder with a specially chosen blend of 3-year aged ligero’s from Nicaragua, Honduras and Dominican Republic. This full-flavored cigar has complex tasting notes of spice; rich tobacco and roasted chestnuts that make this blend the optimum cigar for indulgence.
Wrapped in ornate ribbons, Rogue will be available in 20-count wooden boxes and will offer a full range of vitola’s: 51/2 x 46 Rascal, 5 x 52 Tyrant, 6 x 54 Ruthless, 6 x 60 Bamboozle and 6 x 66 Armageddon. MSRP: $5.99-$11.99.
If you haven’t been enticed by flavored spirits whether it be you don’t enjoy the overly sweet taste that tends to accompany them or you simply feel they’re not “Manly” enough, this particular spirit and cocktail might change your mind. So man up, and read on…
I’ve been a huge fan of spirits in the 20+ years of my drinking life. My tastes have changed through those years from swigging down Old Crow at adolescent parties to sipping Pappy Van Winkle in my study. During the turbulent times vodka had been that clear spirit you either took shots of or used blindly as a mixer in some concoction your friends would make. I owe many harrowing mornings to that grainy spirit although in reality it was the cheap sugared mixtures that wreaked havoc within me upon my midafternoon awakenings. As a result unfairly I might add, my tastes drifted to the darker spirits and all but shunned the vodkas of my yesteryear. It’s these days that I’ve returned to the product that has more taste and versatility then I had previously experienced.
Enter premium vodka; Long Island Distillers which was made famous for their LiV vodka made from Long Island potatoes and local ingredients caught my eye not long ago. After tasting their vodka which had such depth and body to it I was hooked. Richard Stabile president of Long Island Distillers made me a believer. I now had a new found appreciation for vodka and its craft as a handmade quality product. After touting the virtues to all that would listen and drink I was now a premium vodka advocate. After thinking I had conquered the spirits world completely Richard threw me for a loop with his flavored line of premium vodkas.
Currently Long Island Distillers produces a series of natural ingredient flavored vodkas. I’m not talking about your artificially manufactured “flavorings” in vodka that so many companies pump out ad nausem; I’m talking about natural real ingredients. This is where LiV Sorbetta Strawberry Vodka comes in. Ingredients on bottle; Vodka, Fresh Strawberries, Sugar. Simple. All real, all natural. The result is a refreshing vodka with just the right balance of spirit meets ripe fruits. Here are some of my tastings straight and as a cocktail. Enjoy!
LiV Sorbetta Strawberry Vodka straight:
I always like to taste a spirit I’ve never had straight. No ice, no mixing, just the booze. I need to establish a baseline of its taste without anything to dilute or take away from its natural state. This helps me in developing a “flavor recall” for when it’s mixed or I drink another version of the product.
Nose: Sweet wild berry upfront.
Taste: This vodka starts off with a blast of fresh strawberry sweetness followed by a weighty mouthfeel of the potato vodka itself and vanilla notes. The finish lingers with a hint of wild strawberry flavor. With the second sip the sweetness is less pronounced while still keeping that crisp strawberry taste. Midway it develops into a cool aromatic spirit finishing with those subtly sweet wild strawberries. Unlike artificially flavored spirits that are sugary-sweet and one dimensional throughout, this vodka has complexity. Very pleasant and refreshing.
To keep it manly I decided to make a martini and drink it as a cocktail. My mixology skills are limited in that making a mixed drink to me is usually putting a single ice cube into my bourbon. I can however follow a martini recipe rather well. Here is the recipe I followed for those that would like to try it:
Manly LiV Strawberry Vodka Martini
Ingredients:
Ice
1 ounce simple syrup (2 parts sugar, 1 part water, heated, mixed, then cooled)
2 ounces LiV Sorbetta Strawberry vodka
½ oz. Dry Vermouth (Boissiere Extra Dry, Italy)
Combine ingredients and 4 ice cubes in a shaker. Shake vigorously and strain into a martini glass.
Nose: A hint of fresh picked ripe strawberries and slight citrus/ floral notes from the vermouth.
Taste: The first sip brings the vodka upfront with an invigorating strawberry flavor that feels like biting into freshly picked fruit. Dryness of the vermouth comes into play and some floral alcohol moves forward. This martini delivers sweet ripened berries and a crisp angular finish. The chill from the shaken ice really gives a nice aroma to the cocktail. Each sip gave me a perfect balance of alcohol and fruit flavor. Delicious. So man up! Try LiV Sorbetta Strawberry Vodka and while away a sunny afternoon in style gentlemen. Cheers!
May 22, 2013 (Basel, Switzerland) — Davidoff tobacco masters have created these very special Limited Edition “Club House” Toro Cigars with moments of shared pleasure in mind. The connoisseur’s choice, wherever he or she is relaxing, particularly enjoying the fairways on a golf course.
Creation of the Davidoff Masters Edition 2013 “Club House” Toro
For this cigar, the Davidoff Master Blenders decided to play the long game, taking adventurous, sometimes risky, shots. They mixed rare and specially matured tobaccos, focusing on delivering delightful aromas rather than pure strength.
The majestic Gran Toro format allows the aficionado to enjoy the cigar’s intensive but balanced and nuanced taste over its entire length: the exceptional Yamasá wrapper, Mejorado filler and Ecuadorian binder develop mildly peppery and creamy notes, followed by elegant hints of chocolate, caramel and coffee.
Finally, displaying a playful elegance, both the cigar box, which is finished in high gloss white, and the second band carry a golf ball pattern.
The new Davidoff Masters Edition Club House Toro is the ultimate way to fill your time beautifully on a golf course with your friends.
This exclusive edition is limited to 7’000 boxes worldwide and the Davidoff Masters Edition 2013 “Club House” Toro can certainly be described as a collector’s item. As we all know, the perfect round of golf depends upon the choice or club and cigar.
This Limited Edition will be available from the end of May onwards in Appointed Merchants across the US.
Price: $21.90 (each)
Price: $219.00 (box of 10)
Format: Gran Toro
Length: 15.9 cm, 6 ¼”
Ring gauge: 2.1 cm, 52 RG
Wrapper: Yamasá- Marron Claro (matured for 3 years)
Binder: Ecuador
Filler: Piloto Viso, San Vicente Mejorado Seco, Piloto Mejorado Seco, San Vicente Mejorado Viso, Vicente Mejorado Viso
Effective use of social media platforms like Instagram can entice hundreds and even thousands of potential customers to your product for a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing strategies.
In the four years I’ve been actively involved in the New York City cigar community, I’ve become acquainted with the whole gambit of cigar companies that make up what we bloggers like to call the “industry.” I’ve helped to market or promote companies like the small local brick and mortar in Brooklyn, to the new boutique brand in Arizona, and on up to legendary industry leaders like Nat Sherman. My team has hosted or sponsored over 60 events in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and NJ. I’ve also spent a lot of time marketing my own organization, FineTobaccoNYC, which after starting in 2010 as a wordpress blog has become a review website, cigar club with over 700 members, and a luxury consulting company.
You can only meet your customers where they are, and they are on social media.
Central to all of my efforts has been the utilization of social media. I’ve sold a lot of cigars on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, for myself and on behalf of a number of companies. In my work, I’ve noticed that many cigar company owners either a) don’t maintain a social media presence, b) don’t use social media in a way that effectively drives sales, and/or c) don’t know how to measure the effectiveness of social media efforts.
This series of posts, “Social Media for Cigar Companies,” is intended to help cigar shops, brands, and other industry players to market their brand more effectively. If you are a cigar company owner, or just a small business owner referred here from Google, read on and learn how to make money using social media.
Let’s start with why you need to be utilizing social media.Consider these six reasons:
1. Your customers are already using social media
According to the Experian 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, a whopping 91% of adults have a social media presence. Cigar smokers are no exception. The hashtag #cigar on Instagram, for example, has over 300,000 photos and is growing more rapidly every day. You can only meet your customers where they are, and they are on social media. You might be able to count on the older generation calling you on the phone, but you can’t count on that with the younger crowd that will soon make up your customer base.
2. Your competitors are, or will, use social media
Social media as we know it now is less than a decade old. This presents an incredible opportunity for companies with foresight to take an early lead in marketing to the next generation of cigar smokers. It also means that this is your market to lose if you don’t make a wise investment in building a strong presence on social media.
3. Social Media is perfectly suited for luxury market companies
Luxury marketing is about narrative. People don’t just buy your product—they buy your story, your vision of life. This of course means that you must have a story to tell. But just as important, you must be able to present that story in a compelling way.
“92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising.”
Social media is key to this. An Abrams Research study on social media marketing for luxury companies put it this way:
“The luxury market is ideally situated to thrive on social media. Along with deeper pockets, a keen interest in staying up to date on the latest consumer product goods, and an appetite for luxury products and lifestyle markers that’s growing all the time, its customers – the affluent – spend more time online than the general population.”
4. Social media is a leading source of customer referral
The 2012 Nielsen Report on “Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages” found that trust in traditional forms of advertising (television, magazine, banner ads, etc) is in rapid decline. The marketplace is simply too saturated with ads, and as a result consumers have lost faith in those ads.
At the same time, 92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family above allother forms of advertising. Translation: the $4000 you just spent placing that magazine ad could have been two, three, or four times as effective in social media. Why? Because social media is all about referrals. When Bob sees that Jim liked your company’s Facebook page, he is more likely to connect with your company and purchase your product than if you shouted at him to buy your product from a slick looking banner ad.
5. Social media builds invaluable business relationships
Roughly 90% of the valuable relationships I have in the industry started out as friendly conversations on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Why such a lopsided number? The power of these networks is that the social barriers between users are almost entirely non-existent. This allows for informal, totally off the cuff conversations that can serve as introductions to valuable business relationships.
6. Your business can survive without it. But why just survive?
As more of life takes place in online venues, and as social media becomes more deeply embedded in our lives, more of our relationships will start and grow online. At some point, social media relationship building will be a given. This is a big opportunity for those who see the tide shifting and act, and a liability for those who don’t.
In our next segment, we’ll look at the basic platforms you must have a presence on and discuss how each of them allows you to broadcast to, interact with, and entice your audience.
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It’s well known and through great sacrifice I‘ve spent years testing the theory that spirits and cigars go hand in hand. A fine Scotch or Cognac can bring out the nuances of a cigar just as a premium smoke can enhance the flavors of your drink of choice. Two great pleasures in harmony with each other are what I call relaxation. This weekend I had the opportunity to sit back and do just that with one of my favorite bourbons of late and a Cuban regional cigar from Portugal. My findings were interesting to say the least. Enjoy!
First, the bourbon:
Bourbon: Rough Rider- Long Island Distillers
Being a fan of this bourbon already I knew what to expect. Nose of sweet vanilla, toasted oak and the first sip hits you with some lovely cinnamon spice, and maple wood. The finish coats the palate with a butteriness that lingers on. Further tasting, the Rough Rider develops toasty notes with traces of candied fruits and some nice heat on the way down. The buttery finish along with the toasted wood are the lingering factors with this bourbon that keeps you wanting more. I am really looking forward to their next batch as soon as it hits the shelves. Long Island Distillers focuses on small batch releases so they can spend more time on maintaining quality. I’ve visited the distillery and it is quite a hands on and expertly run facility.
Cigar: Cuban Punch Descobridores Exclusivo Portugal
Blend specifics
4 7/8″ x 50
Wrapper: Cuba
Binder: Cuba
Filler: Cuba
The dry draw on this cigar has hearty flavors of fresh tobacco and an earthy quality. Upon lighting the full draw yields toasty notes with a bit of leather on the finish. The first third gives leather, earth and a bit of spice on the retrohale. Lots of rich tobacco taste which shows me the quality and care in the blend which doesn’t always happen in regional cigars. A lot of ER’s that I’ve smoked can be a bit of a crap shoot in terms of decent blends and properly treated tobacco. This cigar has been a pleasant surprise and of exceptionally quality. Midway the Punch offered more toasty flavors and graham cracker. The last third gave a salty taste with more of that full tobacco engulfing the palate.
The Pairing:
As I drank and puffed the interplay with the spirit and cigar where quite appealing. The toasted oak of the bourbon further enhanced the Punch ER’s lush and toasty tobacco flavor. The spice from the bourbon added a nice kick to the tobacco flavors. The buttery finish of the Rough Rider bourbon balanced the savory leather notes of the cigar exceptionally. As the earthiness of the Punch came through the Rough Rider bourbon came back with that finished oak which took the cigar and spirit to another level of flavor and pushed them both to their peak performance. Both cigar and bourbon left me satiated with a resonance of flavors. A truly perfect pairing.
When I pick a cigar and spirit I try to go by what I know of both in terms of flavor and look for complimentary contrasts or balance. There are times like this when I haven’t had the cigar and like I said with the ER’s you don’t know what you can or will get in terms of flavor and blend. Fortunately I struck gold with these two as they not only had balance but their contrasts raised the bar of both their flavor profiles. If you can grab this ER it’s a worthwhile smoke and you should treat yourself to some Rough Rider bourbon even if you can’t find a Punch Descobridores Exclusivo to pair with it. So, my strenuous efforts continue to support the theory that cigars and spirits work oh so well together. All In the name of science.
