Stogie Guys Friday Sampler XVI

In our ongoing effort to make StogieGuys.com as entertaining and reader-friendly as possible, each Friday we’ll post a sampler of quick cigar news and stogie-related snippets to tide you over for the weekend. We call ‘em Friday Samplers. Enjoy.

1) We want to point out a generous offer made in the comments section of Tuesday’s review of the Alonso Menendez Robusto. Paul Arneson, the Mid-Atlantic rep for Brazil Cigars, is offering StogieGuys.com readers a free Alonso Menendez! As long as you live in the Mid-Atlantic region (DC, MD, VA, DE, PA, or WV), you can email Paul for a free stick. What’s the catch? Paul simply asks that, if you like it, please ask your local cigar shop to carry the line. Sounds reasonable to us! Click here for details and Paul’s email address.

2) In yesterday’s news item about the surprising and sad support that Americans have for federal tobacco prohibition, we noted that such a policy would “force smoking into ‘tobacco speakeasies’ and the criminal underworld, like alcohol during prohibition.” In a column today, Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the group that sponsored the survey, fleshes out what such a prohibition would look like. It isn’t pretty:

Big tobacco wouldn’t disappear; it would just change hands and go underground, discarding its high priced lobbyists in favor of people more skilled in violence and intimidation… “Tobacco-related murders” would increase dramatically as criminal organizations competed with one another for turf and markets, and ordinary crime would skyrocket as millions of tobacco junkies sought ways to feed their costly addiction. Smoking would become an act of youthful rebellion… And just imagine the government’s “war on tobacco”

3) Many people forget that, when it comes to producing top-grade cigar wrappers, US-grown Connecticut Shade tobacco (grown in the Connecticut River Valley) can go toe-to-toe with anything from the great cigar producing countries of Latin America. In this Hartford Courant story, we meet the Brown Family, owners of a 500-acre farm who are struggling to produce tobacco when many other families have sold their farms to developers.

4) Finally, we get word from Cigar Aficionado that Padron is preparing a special line for its 80th Anniversary that includes a six and ¾ inches by 54 ring gauge perfecto, the first Padron perfecto ever. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait until next year. But, if you’re particularly impatient, you can get your Padron fix from a new eight cigar sampler that includes selections from the 1964 Anniversary and Series 1926 Padron lines. It’s shipping to stores this Month.

–The Stogie Guys