Posted: 04:35 PM ET, 08/23/07August 12th is always one of my favorite days of the year. It’s my daughter’s birthday. And, it is night for the annual Perseid meteor shower. Every year, I prepare her meal of choice: (fresh-made pesto on pasta, caprese salad with fresh mozzarella, and sweet corn from a farm stand. Read more
Posted: 09:28 AM ET, 08/23/07Within a few weeks, cigar smokers of America will know whether or not they are going to get socked with a huge new tax on their favorite product. The subject was on everybody’s mind at the RTDA trade show in early August in Houston. Everywhere you turned, small groups of manufacturers were huddled together in serious conversation, trying to strategize about the best ways to tackle the problem, and get legislators in Washington to listen to their plight. Read more
Posted: 12:32 PM ET, 08/21/07Whew. I’m back at work after an extended break, which included four days in the middle of my vacation getting to and from and attending the RTDA convention. There were also 10 days on Martha’s Vineyard, and three days getting my daughter off to college in Ohio. Read more
Posted: 11:46 AM ET, 08/17/07Where did the summer go? A few weeks ago I was on vacation in Vermont, and last week I was in Houston at the RTDA. Both are in my rear-view mirror now. On top of that, I’m one week away from my fantasy football draft. Summer is just about over.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the start of football season, particularly fantasy football season. Read more
Posted: 06:49 AM ET, 08/14/07I smoked a 1996 Partagas Lusitania from a cedar cabinet box of 50 last night in a small hipster wine bar in Hong Kong called Bar Aedes. This is a place a lot of the wine and restaurant trade hang in, and they don’t mind smoking. So cool…
Anyway, the Lusi was one of the best double coronas I have had in a long, long time. Read more
Posted: 09:48 AM ET, 08/13/07Anyone watching “Mad Men”? I don’t mean the current presidential campaign, but the new series on AMC centered on the advertising industry circa 1960 (Thursday at 10 p.m. also on demand with TV Encore).
It’s pretty well done. Read more
Posted: 04:22 PM ET, 08/09/07I’m back in the office with a full notebook, bags and bags of new cigars and a slightly groggy head. RTDA is over.
Despite the lower attendance than at the 2006 show in Las Vegas (where the show shall return in 2007, by the way) most of the cigar folks I spoke with were fairly pleased with the amount of business they wrote. Read more
Posted: 08:12 PM ET, 08/07/07My voice went out sometime around 8 last night, the victim of lots of cigars and maybe a little too much talking. Occupational hazard. I’ll be fine.
The voice aside, last night was a good one, with a great dinner hosted by Ashton Cigars at the Petroleum Club overlooking the city. Read more
Posted: 06:55 PM ET, 08/06/07It’s still a rather thin crowd here at the RTDA show. "It’s under populated," said one industry veteran, starting out at the aisles. It seems as if Houston in the heart of summer just hasn’t pulled in the crowds the same way that Las Vegas did a year ago. Read more
Posted: 06:19 PM ET, 08/05/07I was taking my first walk around the show floor here at the 75th Retail Tobacco Dealers of America trade show in Houston, and there it was: a full bar. I’ve seen a lot of things in the 13 RTDAs I’ve attended—a girl wearing an outfit made of less material than it takes to cover one of my feet; someone dressed in orange paint, like an Oompa Loompa—but never a rail where one could order a Tanqueray or a Maker’s Mark. Read more
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