The Stogie Guys

Each Saturday and Sunday we’ll post a Quick Smoke: not quite a full review, just our brief verdict on a single cigar of “buy,” “hold,” or “sell.”

Although this stick came out last year, I’ve only recently gotten around to it. Little about the Retro Especiale line, from band and box to wrapper and taste, is common to the traditional La Gloria Cubana. The blend is a complex mixture of several tobacco strains from four countries, including a Connecticut-seed wrapper grown in Honduras and a double binder that includes Mexican leaf. Numerous flavors developed throughout, with strength about medium. The draw felt a little loose and the burn wandered a bit, but it is certainly an interesting cigar worth a try.

Verdict = Buy.

–George E

photo credit: N/A

As we have since July 2006, each Friday we’ll post a mixed bag of quick cigar news and other items of interest. Below is our latest Friday Sampler.

1) The price of premium cigars increased by 25 cents per stick in Chicago yesterday. The president of the Cook County Board, Toni Preckwinkle (pictured), had originally proposed a 30-cent tax on cigars in November. When she did, Bill Spann, chief executive officer of the IPCPR, fired back in a press release. “This is wrong on so many levels,” he said. “First of all, Cook County and Chicago residents and consumers are already paying high taxes on all tobacco products. If the County Board or City Council increase those taxes, consumers will take their business elsewhere. In addition, bootlegging of tobacco products will be encouraged, as will their purchase over the internet, neither of which generates taxes.”

2) As the 2012 Habanos Festival rolls on, Cuban officials have released figures that show a 9% increase in sales in Cuban cigars in 2011, adding up to over $400 million. Spain remains the top listed market with emerging markets like China, Russia, Brazil, and the Middle East gaining pace. The U.S. is the world’s consumer of cigars, though it is difficult to tell how much money Americans spent on Cubans last year since the 50-year-old trade embargo relegates those purchases to the black market.

3) Inside the Industry: Only available for a few months, General Cigar is releasing the Punch Rare Corojo and Punch Rare Corojo 10th Anniversary in limited quantities. Tickets to the Midwest Smoke Out, held on April 19 at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana, are being sold here for $150 apiece.

4) Around the Blogs: Stogie Review reviews a Paul Stulac Angel. Cigar Brief smokes a La Gloria Cubana Retro Especial. Cigar Obsession obsesses over a St. George Sumatra. Cigar Fan fires up a Casa Magnus Domus Magnus Limitada. Cigar Inspector inspects a Juan Lopez Maximo (RE Switzerland).

5) Deal of the Week: This “Petite Elite Sampler” features ten corona-sized cigars for just $25. Included are two-each of the Romeo y Julieta Habana Reserve, Punch Elite Natural, Carlos Toraño 1916, Cielo Eros, and Puros Indios.

–The Stogie Guys

photo credit: Examiner

Yesterday, a federal judge slapped down the Food & Drug Administration’s new tobacco warning labels as a violation of the Constitution’s free-speech protections. The legal challenge was brought by five tobacco companies, including some of the largest cigarette makers.

The new FDA labels, which take up half of the surface area on a pack of cigarettes, were scheduled to debut in September. Proposed last year, they were full color photos (including images of a cadaver with a sewn-up chest, diseased lungs and gums, and cigarette smoke drifting around an infant) accompanied by a “Quit Now” toll-free phone number.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s ruling sharply criticized the FDA for misrepresenting the labels. In a key footnote, he wrote, “Although the FDA conveniently refers to these graphic images as ‘graphic warnings,’ characterizing these graphic images as ‘warnings’ is inaccurate and unfair as they are more about shocking and repelling than warning.”

Later in the 19-page decision, Leon wrote, “The graphic images here were neither designed to protect the consumer from confusion or deception, nor to increase consumer awareness of smoking risks; rather, they were crafted to evoke a strong emotional response calculated to provoke the viewer to quit or never start smoking.”

In concluding that the labels were a violation of the First Amendment, Leon wrote, “The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech.”

Analysis

While not specifically related to cigars, this ruling has significant implications for all FDA regulation of tobacco, showing that there are limits to the government’s seemingly endless war on tobacco.

Judge Leon’s frequent criticism of FDA misrepresentations is particularity important, finally putting the brakes on the anti-tobacco movement’s attempt to play fast and loose with the facts. Critically, it sets a precedent that anti-tobacco regulations must be fact-based, and can’t merely be designed to oppose smoking.

Left unsaid was the hypocrisy of how anti-tobacco advocates frequently point back to supposed scientific misrepresentations of tobacco companies many decades ago, but now are the ones who frequently rely on suspect scientific conclusions and dubious logic. For example, the FDA’s own study released in October 2010 found that although the labels may stir the emotions of smokers, they might not cause smokers to quit.

For cigars, whose often ornate and decorative packaging is steeped in tradition, the limits on labels is even more important than it is for cigarettes. And with the FDA currently moving to regulate cigars like cigarettes, this ruling could be critical to limiting the damage done to to cigars until H.R. 1639 becomes law.

–Patrick S

photo credit: FDA