Procigar 2010 Festival Wrap-Up

PRESS RELEASE
PROCIGAR FESTIVAL 2010

Santiago, Dominican Republic - Beginning on Sunday, February 14, 2010, leading cigar manufacturers and sponsors came together to kick off the third annual Procigar Festival to celebrate the Dominican Republic's role as one of the world's foremost tobacco producing countries.

Sponsored by world-renowned Dominican cigar producing companies, General Cigar, Matasa, Tabacalera de Garcia, La Aurora, Tabadom, and Tabaquisa, the 2010 Procigar Festival welcomed more than 200 guests representing more than 20 countries.

During the Festival, participants enjoyed guided tours of each sponsor company's tobacco plantations and cigar making operations. In addition, the Festival also celebrated the rich culture of the island nation by treating guests to authentic Dominican cuisine, merengue music and visits to local cultural centers.

The festival began on February 14th in La Romana, Casa de Campo, where Jose Seijas from Tabacalera de Garcia welcomed the cigar lovers to the Dominican Republic. While in La Romana, guests participated in the third annual Procigar Golf Tournament at the legendary Teeth of the Dog golf course, one of two golf tournaments that took place during this year's festival.

On Tuesday February 16th, Festival registration began in Santiago and on Wednesday February 17th the official activities of the festival started in the host city of Santiago de Los Caballeros. During the three-day itinerary, guests were treated to guided tours of Matasa, La Aurora, General Cigar and Davidoff factories, where attendees saw firsthand how their favorite cigars are produced. As a bonus, guests had the opportunity to enjoy lunch with executives and cigar makers from each sponsor company and participated of tastings, seminars, tobacco rolling experience and the launching of new cigars.

New for this year, each guest had the opportunity to select from one of five daily activities online to customize their itinerary before arriving. In addition to cigar factory and plantation tours, Procigar festival participants had the option to partake in activities including Presidente Beer, Brugal Rum, Karoma Coffee plantation, the Dominican Craftsmanship and City Tour or the Path of Chocolate tour. For the adventuresome, the Damajagua River Adventure featured a guided tour of Dominican waterfalls. In addition it was held a second golf tournament, which took place at Santiago's Las Aromas golf course.

Also new for 2010, the Festival's first-ever press conference was held at the Hodelpa Gran Almirante in Santiago with the participation of Hendrik Kelner, Manuel Quesada, Dan Carr, Guillermo Leon and Juan Clemente, followed by the seminar "Why Dominican Republic is Cigar Country". A cigar blind tasting contest was made during this seminar ending with 7 lucky winners that received discounts and full paid trip for the 2011 Festival.

The welcome dinner was filled with Dominican culture featuring carnaval, Dominican cuisine and perico-ripiao music performed by "El Prodigio". A dancing contest was made up again of festival participants, the finalist were again Arthur Zarestky, Michael Herklots and new on stage Thaddeus Bug, the latter took the crown earning the prize of selecting 100 cigars from any of the Procigar members cigar factories.

A gorgeous white dinner was offered at the Monumento a los Heroes de La Restauracion, which is the main symbolic building of Santiago, here the participants enjoyed a beautiful view of the city and a taste of a unique cigar, never to be repeated again, made with special tobaccos from all factories of Procigar. A silent auction was also held to benefit the sister country of Haiti. A fun after party continued after this dinner for those that did not want to end the night early.

The closing ceremony was held at a private club in Santiago called Centro Espanol. This year's theme embraced the history of Santiago and celebrated the sights and sounds of Santiago in the early 1900's. The evening culminated in a live auction of limited edition cigars and related items to benefit the Voluntariado de Jesus con los ninos (Non-Profit organization for ill children) and the Hospicio San Vicente de Paul de Santiago (retirement home for low income elders).

Gold Sponsors:
Hodelpa Gran Almirante, Presidente, American Airlines, Ferquido, Cigar Rings, Banco Popular, Intabaco, Fersan, Casa de Campo, Consejo Nacional de Zonas Francas de Exportacion, Vriijdag premium printing, Corporacion Zona Franca Industrial, Ayuntamiento Municipal de Santiago, Karoma.

Silver Sponsors:
Manne Tobacco Flavour, Editoria Premium, Brugal

Bronze Sponsors:
El Catador, Coca-Cola y Dasani, Golf Destinaire (Callaway), El Sendero del Cacao, CEI-RD, International Packaging, UPS, Direccion General de Aduanas, BME, Seguros BanReservas

Visit the TU Facebook page for Procigar 2010 Pictures & Video

NYC Says Heroin-Yes, Tobacco-No

Last year the New York City (NYC) health commissioner and mayor stated their intent to ban outdoor smoking because 'children should not have to see smokers'. NYC also banned the sale of all flavored tobacco (specifically by professional tobacconists), and mandated that retail tobacconists must place graphic and disgusting images of disease next to our products. Clearly, NYC hates tobacco in a way that transcends science, facts, tolerance, taste, or the value of self-determination and freedom. The bigotry of NYC's legislators and leaders could not be more obvious in a society that ignores the value of protecting smoker and business owner rights. And we know all of this because NYC continues to tax, ban, prohibit, and over-legislate our industry into near extinction.

What we did not know, is that while they are pursuing the prohibition of tobacco, NYC is simultaneously promoting the 'safe' use of heroin - you can't make this stuff up! While NYC forces tobacconists to display images of disease, they provide heroin users with step-by-step guides, colorfully illustrated for their heroin using pleasure! Click on this CRA News Alert to get the full story.

Don't be surprised if NYC [and all of the other towns and cities that mimic these legislators] force bars, liquor and wine stores to post grotesque pictures of drunk driving accident victims; while publishing 'How To Cook Methamphetamine" brochures - Coming to an America in 2010? PROBABLY.

Please read and share this news alert from the CRA; you have to see it to believe it. Channel your anger into pro-activity, make sure you are participating with the CRA, and show your friends the destructive path we are being led down.

Humidor Setup

Cigar Interview: Jorge Armenteros, CMT, Tobacconist University

Stalk Priming: Content Preview

For the better part of 2009 we have been researching and studying a very unique dark tobacco harvesting method known as Stalk Priming. This is an exclusive presentation of an agricultural and processing method which has been hidden or lost to the contemporary world of cigar smokers. We are calling this content "in development" because we would like to re-create these harvesting and processing conditions and ultimately taste the final product; that will take money, time, and more effort. In addition, this is considered CMT Curriculum, or 'advanced' content which will eventually go into the testing process for Certified Master Tobacconists.

Regardless of all these details, none of the research and writing we do has any value if we do not share it, so here it is... Please feel free to comment and share.

Thanks to Jose "Don Pepin" Garcia for sharing hist time, experience, and wisdom during the develpment of this content. The astute observer may have noticed that we included a definition of Stalk Priming in The Tobacconist Handbook and TU Glossary, but this is the first preview of the academic curriculum.

"We Are Better Than Them" Bigotry

"We are better than them" is a notion that anti-smokers and the anti-smoking movement hold close to their hearts and minds. But they do not have a monopoly on that sentiment, as I just heard a cigar salesman tell me that "we are better than them" when referring to cigarette smokers.

We know that cigars and pipe smokers enjoy tobacco very differently from cigarette smokers and the products themselves are very different. But, dependency and patterns of use does not make anyone better than another.

Are you better than me because you work out four days a week and I only work out three? Are you better because you eat more vegetables? Are you better because you are thinner? better looking? have more hair? etc..... The notion that one person is better than another for the pleasures they choose, their tastes, and/or preferences is absurd, divisive, and it is the reason all smokers are losing their rights. The anti-smoking/nanny-state/pleasure-police movement capitalizes on the notion that 'they know better' and that 'they are better'. But, this is a fraud and it is the essence of their bigotry. The only qualitative measure of a person should derive from how they treat other people.

Ultimately, we must all respect each others' rights and freedoms in order preserve our own. Tobacco users are not "dirty", "filthy", or "disgusting" people any more than non-smokers, fat, or ugly people are. In fact, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and taste is subjective, so who are we to judge?

Tobacconists and tobacco lovers are clearly the besmirched underdog in this society and we are going to have to change the way we view the world in order to make significant progress. We must change our perspective, become less divisive, build more coalitions, and teach others to respect our freedoms and choices as much as we respect theirs. If every cigar lover, as 5% of the population, convinced 12 people to respect our freedoms, then we could have a chance at surviving the tyranny of the majority.

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

- Benjamin Franklin

The Tobacco Smokescreen: Distracting Bigotry

In NYC we are now fighting the prohibition of all flavored tobaccos; plus the threat of banning smoking outdoors in parks and beaches so 'children won't have to see smokers'. Meanwhile, taxation, smoking bans, and de-normalization of smokers continues to increase. Yet, we learned this year that the use of anti-depressants has doubled over the last decade and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, you can walk into any convenience store, supermarket, or 'nutritional center' and buy yourself amphetamine-like drinks and diet pills, erectile aids, and five hour energy shots. Plus, I just read that the new 'hot' product on the market is caffeine laced meat!

Politicians and legislators are beating up on the tobacco industry and the people and businesses suffering the most are retail tobacconists and luxury tobacco aficionados. Yet, 'feel-good' prohibitions, taxation, and restrictions continue to be passed by local, state, and federal agencies. Meanwhile, the substantive problems of the world seem to go unaddressed. At this point, even cigarette smokers are more than paying for any societal costs associated with their pleasures, yet the government is milking them to pay for childrens' health-care - this is happening because the societal perception that cigarette smokers (or all smokers) are "filthy" or "dirty" people with a "disgusting" habit. Well, as long as our government chooses to stigmatize and punish unpopular people, I can guarantee that nothing positive or substantive will ever get done. Consumers of alcohol and fat people beware! This will not stop until we stand up and help minorities protect their choices/pleasures/freedoms, even if they are not the freedoms that we choose to exercise.

"You can only be free if I am free."
- Clarence Darrow