Heard in the Humidor: May 19-23, 2008

Los Angeles -- "You know what it reminds me of? Nothing." That's the high praise of one Arizona retailer for the new Alec Bradley Tempus line, which started shipping just two weeks ago and is now in a growing number of stores across the country. The word "tempus" is Latin for "time" and the cigar meets the growing desire of smokers for more and more flavor.

"It has good strength," said Alec Bradley president Alan Rubin, "and waves of flavor throughout the smoke. This cigar is going to have legs for some time." The initial size line-up shows five shapes: a 5 1/2-inch by 42-ring corona; a 5-inch by 50-ring robusto; a 7 1/2-inch by 41-ring lonsdale; 7-inch by 49-ring double corona and a 6 1/8-inch by 52-ring torpedo, with retail pricing ranging from $6.25 to $8.75 each (not including local sales and tobacco taxes).

Made in a small factory in Honduras, where Alec Bradley is the largest client, the Tempus line has been in development since 2003, when Rubin saw a specific wrapper that he wanted to use on a new, first-line cigar. Although his company is already well known for its MAXX line as well as Trilogy and other blends, "I think our flagship, going forward, is going to be Tempus." That's quite a prediction in view of the success of the MAXX line. Its bold taste has made it a popular choice, but also created demand for a second line.

"It's done very well for us," said Rubin. "Many [retail] customers said they lined the blend, but asked for more traditional sizing." The MAXX line has seven sizes, all with large ring gauges of 46 up to 62. The new MAXX Traditional line has four sizes, but with significant changes in the blend. "We tweaked it," said Rubin. "We concentrated the flavors 'down' to the new sizes."

The tobaccos come from the same places -- Nicaraguan wrapper, Costa Rican binder and filler leaves from Colombia, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua -- but the proportions have been changed for sizes that range from 43 ring gauge up to just 52.

"The response has been phenomenal," noted Rubin, who said he might not be done with this line just yet. Now offered are a Churchill (7 inches by 48 ring, with a suggested retail price of $5.60 each), Corona (5 1/2 x 43, $4.25), Toro (6 x 50, $5.30) and Torpedo (6 1/8 x 52, $5.60), all in boxes of 25.

>> The struggle over the U.S. rights to the "Guantanamera" cigar brand continues with the filing of an appeal of a U.S. Patent & Trademark Office decision handing such rights to Habanos, S.A. for its Guantanamera brand.

The issue arose when the Florida-based Guantanamera Cigar Co. sued Habanos, the Cuban government's marketing and distribution firm over the American trademark rights to the Guantanamera name. The Cubans introduced a machine-made Guantanamera cigar brand in 2002 in four shapes; the brand's artwork has a guitar theme that apparently makes reference to the popular "Guajira de Guantanamera" folk song written by Cuban performer Jose Fernandez Diaz in 1929 and made famous in the U.S. by The Sandpipers in 1966. The complaint states that the Guantanamera Cigar Co. has been selling its Guantanamera brand since 1997 and filed for the trademark in May 2001.

Habanos objected to the use of the name and planned to obtain the trademark itself and the issue has been in dispute since 2002. The brand is a good seller, although at a very low price point for Habanos; testimony in the case indicated that 3.4 million Guantanameras were sold in 2002 and then sales increased to 11.6 million in 2003, 12.8 million in 2004 and 18.7 million in 2005!

The new filing, in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., argues that the Patent & Trademark Office decision is wrong in its holding that the Miami-based Guantanamera Cigar Co.'s products are "geographically deceptive" in that smokers would expect a cigar with this name to come from Cuba, specifically the Guantanamo area to which the song refers (a "guantanamera" is a girl from Guantanamo). The Miami cigar maker contends that the brand name refers to the song and that American consumers are unaware of the geographical reference to the now-famous Guantanamo region in southeastern Cuba.

>> Short fillers: Although his planned 98-foot-long cigar would have been far short of the Guinness-listed world record for the longest cigar ever, Cuban master roller Jose Castelar Cairo didn't panic. He ordered more tobacco. Already a three-time world-record setter, he completed his latest attempt during the International Tourism Fair in Havana and ended with a surprising new record cigar of 148 feet, nine inches (45.38 m). "The best in the world, no?" said Cairo -- known as "Cueto" -- after he finished the cigar, with the help of six assistants, over a six-day period. "It's an honor for Cuba and I feel satisfied to do it for Cuba," he told the Reuters news agency during a party following the completion of his record effort. The new record cigar is about two inches (128 ring gauge) thick...find our latest tasting review, of the three blends in General Cigar's Sancho Panza lines, in our News & Views archives for May 16.

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

Rich Perelman

5/19/08

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