For the week of January 14-18, 2008

Los Angeles – The story of the Pinar cigar line is well known. A very old batch of pre-embargo Cuban tobacco was discovered in a New Jersey warehouse in 1998 and the result was the famed Pinar line, created and distributed by Puros de Armando Ramos.

The last blend in the line that used the old Cuban tobacco was the 2003-introduced Pinar P3000, which last shipped to retailers in early 2007. Another blend, the Pinar Suprema, was introduced in 2004, but didn’t last too long. Now, Puros de Armando Ramos chief Paul Magier thinks he has the blend right, without (of course) resorting to the use of Cuban-grown tobacco. So now comes the debut of the Pinar P4000 line.

"This time around, we didn't just try to make a worthy successor to the name, we went a whole lot farther," wrote Magier in an e-mail message. "Taking the P3000 blend apart leaf by leaf, we spent several years selecting a specific new leaf to replicate the flavor of each original one. Once we had chosen the right farm, right seed, right cut for each leaf, then we got deep into sorting and selecting by very tightly defined fermentation times and temperatures. The point was to make a cigar truly indistinguishable from the P3000."

The new, full-bodied Pinar P4000 comes in six sizes which proved most popular in the P3000 line. All are offered in slide-top cabinets of 20, with suggested retail prices around $7 each before local tobacco or sales taxes.

>> Can you imagine some deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration telling Carlos Fuente or Henke Kelner or Orlando Padron how to make cigars? It could happen.

Although aimed primarily at cigarettes, the proposed bills now in Congress – S. 625 and H.R. 1108 – to give the FDA control over tobacco products could spell disaster for cigar makers. An especially devious section 907(a)(4) in the 156-page bill proposes that "tobacco product standards" be established which would allow the FDA to require "reduction of nicotine yields and reduction or elimination of other constituents, including smoke constituents, or harmful components of the product".

In other words, the FDA could, under this provision, require cigar makers to create or use specific kinds of tobacco that have less nicotine or which create lower yields of what the scientific community will identify as "harmful components" in tobacco when smoked as cigars. Depending on the vigor with which such regulations are applied, the worldwide cigar industry could end up as the auto industry did at one time, with specific cigars for the U.S. and others for the rest of the world, as auto manufacturers had to provide cars to be sold in California with specific equipment that was not mandated in the rest of the country. The only word for such a concept is insane.

The writers of this bill clearly had cigarettes in mind, however, for most of its provisions. However, rather than creating a bill to control cigarette consumption, all "tobacco products" could come under FDA regulation. (According to the Cigar Association of America, cigarettes outsold all forms of cigars, 380.3 billion to 9.8 billion, in 2006.) The FDA-control bill would create a mess for cigar makers and would slow the introduction of new brands into the market to a crawl. And perhaps the most miserable provision of all is in sec. 906(d)(1):

"The Secretary may by regulation require restrictions on the sale and distribution of a tobacco product, including restrictions on the access to, and the advertising and promotion of, the tobacco product, if the Secretary determines that such regulation would be appropriate for the protection of the public health."

So who’s behind this monstrosity? In the Senate, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts has been the leader of the movement and had 53 co-sponsors, including current Presidential candidates Barack Obama (Illinois), Hillary Clinton (New York) and Arizona Republican John McCain. Remember that when it comes time for voting in your local primary.

>> A survey released last year showed that as many as one in five cigarettes purchased in Canada were counterfeit. That’s a lot of tax dollars missed and the Canadian government is doing something about it.

The Canadian Press reported that the Canada Revenue Agency has contracted with Swiss-based SICPA Product Security to produce new tax stamps with hidden security features. The new stamps allow law enforcement (and retailers) to know by scanning a pack whether it came from an authorized source.

In a demonstration of the impact of taxation on tobacco products, the CP also reported that Canadian tobacco retailers are just as worried – or more so – about smuggled tobacco, "much of it manufactured on native reserves and sold in plastic bags. It’s clear to buyers that the product is not legitimate. But consumers are drawn to the price – as little as $10, compared to a carton of cigarettes that can cost between $63 and $84 (Canadian) in different provinces." One company spokesman said these were little more than Ziploc bags filled with 200 cigarettes and sold on the cheap.

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Heard in the Humidor is a publication of Perelman, Pioneer & Company. Copyright 2008; All rights reserved.

Cigar Cyclopedia

1/14/08

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