Views from a Smoke-Filled Room

Kaizad Hansotia swears that the story is true. He was in Goa, India, in 1989 discussing how much it would cost to buy the inventory and trademark of a cigar he was enjoying.

Los Angeles – He was negotiating with two brothers who were rolling cigars and selling them to locals and tourists who came to enjoy the beach. There was plenty of talk and in the end, Hansotia got his cigars and the trademark. For the equivalent of $143.

It didn’t take him long to capitalize on his acquisition. By 1992 he had introduced the Gurkha Royal Salute in beautifully-presented boxes of 22 with each cigar sealed in a glass tube. Soon after, he debuted the astonishing His Majesty’s Reserve line, a double corona of 7 1/2 inches and 52 ring gauge which sold for the unthinkable price of $5,000.00 for a box of 20. The price has since gone up to $7,500.00 per box.

And he didn’t stop there. Hansotia, working closely with the outstanding factories of the Torano family, has created one show-stopper after another, each packaged more and more spectacularly. His greatest triumph came in late 2006.

He created an amazing, not-to-be-believed holiday gift called the Gurkha Black Dragon Edicion Especial that was featured in The Robb Report. Each cigar, made in Honduras, measured 8 1/2 inches long with a ring gauge of 52 and utilized 15-year-old tobaccos. A total of 500 were made, with five chests – each hand-carved from 75-year-old camel bone – of 100 offered at a staggering price of $115,000 each. That’s $1,150 for each cigar!

Hansotia said he’s sold three of the five boxes, all to buyers from the Middle East. But the publicity didn’t hurt the introduction of a more down-to-earth Black Dragon series that appeared on retail store shelves last year.

"My criteria for the cigars were distinctive and prestigious character, high quality and tightly limited availability," he said in an interview in 2007. Perhaps more than any other distributor, he uses exquisite packaging to set his cigars apart and support a higher price than even the Torano’s own cigar lines can command.

And he has plenty of different blends to go around. Hansotia recognizes the luxury niche he’s carved for himself and has almost two dozen different Gurkha blends in circulation with names like Ancient Warrior, Avenger, Estate Select, Genghis Khan, Grand Age, Grand Reserve, Marquesa, Master’s Select, Prestige, Regent, Royal Salute, Signature Aniversario, Status, Symphony, Vintage Shaggy, Warlord and others. All scream quality and exclusivity and are presented to underscore that impression.

He even created special blends to be sold at lower prices under the G2 and G3 labels, but again with elegant graphics and presentation.

The strategy is unique in that each blend is produced in only a limited quantity, allowing the Gurkha brand to be represented – if Hansotia decides to do so – with different blends in different stores in the same city! Everyone gets an exclusive, but each store also has a Gurkha range to offer. Brilliant.

The Gurkha brand reported dates back to 1887, when the brand originated in Jamaica. It’s safe to say that no one from the British Trading Company ever thought that their cigars would sell for $7,500 the box! Neither did the brothers who sold Hansotia the rights to the brand, but then "Kaiser" (as he is known in the trade) is not one to let an investment go up in smoke.

(Rich Perelman is editor-in-chief of CigarCyclopedia.com, offering comprehensive daily coverage of cigars, accessories, issues, people and prices at www.CigarCyclopedia.com.)

Rich Perelman

2/12/08

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