In my column of 1 July when I threw down the gauntlet and claimed I would do a trip to Nicaragua and Drew Estate better than Bob McDuffee and Colin Ganley; I neglected to mention Dale Roush of Dog Watch Social Club and CigarMedia.tv. Sadly, my omission had to be pointed out to me by Dale himself. Dale did it as a joke, of course, placing a comment on the site. That made it all the worse. I don’t much like making errors – especially in print. My apologies to Dale and to my readers.

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BREAKING NEWS…1 July…Jose Ortega has resigned as Vice President of Sales at Reyes Family Cigars (Puros Indios, Cuba Aliados). Methinks he will join the Garcias’ My Family Cigar Company, and work in tandem with John Gonzalez, the present Vice President of Sales. I would not be surprised to see the rapidly expanding Garcia enterprise divide sales responsibility between the two, with one focusing on domestic sales and the other focusing on internation sales.

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New York City, 18 June…With those words, Glynn Loope, Executive Director of the CRA, ended his brief, but pointed, remarks at the New York Tobacconists Association Press Conference on Friday, 18 June. The event was held at De La Concha and was attended by a large number of Tobacconist/Retailers and the press. The Daily News, New York Post, Fox News and others were present from the media. The cigar media also turned out, taking notes and pictures and videos. The event was occasioned by Governor Patterson’s proposed 90% tax on cigars and other tobacco products. The group maintains that such an onerous tax will cause many, many shops to close; with the attendant loss of jobs.

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New York City, 18 June…Thursday evening, 17 June, William C. Paley was the host at a Pre-launch Cocktail Party for his La Palina cigar. The event took place on the roof of The Empire Hotel, overlooking Lincoln Center. After acquiring the rights to his grandfather, Samuel Paley’s, more than 100 year old cigar from Max Rohr Co. (an entity owned by AltadisUSA), Paley collaborated with the late Avelino Lara of Cohiba fame, and Paolo Garzaroli of Graycliff – Lara’s last employer, in the Bahamas, to bring back the famed and highly successful turn of the century cigar.

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I don’t really know who Bryan White is…all I know is he is from Phoenix and somehow, he is a ‘friend’ of mine on Facebook. I also know that he’s got a cigar called 13th Floor and it is being made by El Titan de Bronze in Miami’s Little Havana. He must have smoked El Titan’s Redemption series which was blended by Willy Herrera. Sam Dribben of The Black Cat in Philadelphia calls Willy “…the successor to Pepin Garcia,” but that’s only because Sam has an obsession about Pepin. It is not the same obsession he had when Pepin was making his house brand, El Rey Miguel. It’s an obsession that began when Pepin elected to stop making that cigar. So, Sam takes these pointless, meaningless swipes at the Master in his catalogue. But, I digress (which is not unusual for me). Bryan must have smoked the Redemption because it would convince anyone to have El Titan de Bronze make a cigar for them.

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