The Daily

Education · 3 min

Mexico Seizes 2.4 Million Counterfeit Cigars Hidden in a 'Perfumed Chopsticks' Manifest

A Beijing air-cargo shipment declared as scented chopsticks turned out to be one of the largest counterfeit-cigar interdictions in recent memory. Here is what it tells the everyday buyer.

Education · 3 min

A $65 Cuban in a Humidor Inside a Humidor: The El Rey del Mundo Tico Arrives Sept. 28

Costa Rica's third Regional Edition ever is a tiny-brand Habanos release that sells the box as hard as the cigar: 6,000 numbered cabinets, each nested in its own desktop humidor.

Education · 3 min

The Tariff Hangover: How Altadis Is Unwinding One Surcharge While Raising Everything Else

A refund on a dead tariff, a smaller import surcharge, and the first portfolio-wide price increase since January 2025 all land on the same October day. The math for your humidor is less simple than any of the three headlines.

Education · 3 min

Four Doors Into the World's Largest New Cigar Market: What InterTabac Said About China

From licensed import quotas to gray-market American inventory, the Dortmund floor spent Wednesday agreeing on one thing: the next decade of cigar demand is being written in Chinese.

Education · 3 min

The Register Is Closed: How a Bank, Not a Customer, Just Stopped Cuban Cigars in Central Europe

5th Avenue, the distributor that moves Cuban cigars to Austria, Germany, and Poland, told retailers it cannot take or ship a single order. The reason is not demand, supply, or politics. It is a compliance review of a shareholder three steps removed from the counter.

Education · 3 min

The Man Holding the Pen: Bret Koplow Becomes Permanent Chief of FDA Tobacco Regulation

After sixteen months as acting director, the lawyer who inherited the most embattled desk in tobacco policy now holds the job for real. Every open question about premium cigars runs through his office.

Education · 3 min

California's Flavored-Tobacco List Survives a Federal Appeal

The Ninth Circuit rejected the cigar industry's request to block California's Unflavored Tobacco List, and the reasoning hints at what comes next.

Education · 2 min

When Public Comment Is Mostly Copy and Paste

A new JAMA Network Open study finds that the vast majority of comments submitted to the FDA's menthol and flavored-cigar dockets were identical form letters, not grass-roots opinion.

Education · 2 min

A New Name at the FDA: What Heidi Overton Means for Premium Cigars

President Trump has chosen Dr. Heidi Overton to run the federal tobacco regulator. Her views on cigars are largely unknown, and that blank page is what matters now.

Education · 3 min

PCA's Tariff Roadmap Explains the Four Phases That Now Shape Cigar Prices

A new guide from the Premium Cigar Association walks through the emergency reciprocal tariffs, the temporary 10 percent surcharge, and the Section 301 forced-labor rates that took effect at the end of July.

Education · 3 min

The Private Club Is No Longer Safe: Spain's Proposed Smoking Ban

A new plan would outlaw smoking on every Spanish terrace, beach, and park, and for the first time anywhere it would reach inside private smokers clubs.

Education · 2 min

Seven Hundred Fifty Cigars, One Price Increase, and a Tariff Bill That Keeps Growing

Scandinavian Tobacco Group raised prices across nearly 750 SKUs on August 3, the broadest single-day hike in recent memory. The increase hits Alec Bradley, CAO, Macanudo, Cohiba, and half a dozen other brands. But the wholesale bump is only half the story. A separate import charge, tied to tariffs, climbed from 6 to 7 percent the same day, meaning even cigars whose base price did not change now cost retailers more.

Education · 3 min

The Man Who Bought Half of Habanos Now Faces a Death Sentence

Chen Zhi helped acquire Imperial Brands' cigar empire for $1.4 billion and ended up owning the largest non-Cuban stake in Habanos S.A. Now he sits in a Chinese prison cell, formally charged with crimes that carry the death penalty, while the companies he bought fight to untangle themselves from his name.

Education · 3 min

The Festival That Voted With Its Feet: Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival Leaves Colorado

After sixteen years in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival crossed the border into Wyoming. The Governor welcomed it with a letter that quoted his father on rolling cigarettes. The contrast with the state it left behind tells you something about where cigar culture is wanted and where it is not.

Education · 3 min

The Store That Bought the Brand: Smoker Friendly Takes an Equity Stake in Casa 1910

A chain with over a thousand retail locations just bought ownership in a Mexican cigar company. The deal says something about where the money in premium cigars is actually flowing.

Education · 3 min

The Cigars Your Tobacconist Traveled To Honduras To Buy

JRE's Camp Aladino 1962 Toro is sold only at shops whose owners made the trip to Danlí. The cigar is a reward for commitment as much as a blend, and it shows how factory visits are becoming a loyalty program of their own.

Education · 4 min

Who Steers Drew Estate After Glenn Wolfson

Drew Estate's chief executive has died; this is what that means for the company, its brands, and the smokers who depend on its factories.

Education · 4 min

The Espresso Short Canon: When Flavored Cigars Grew Up

Infused cigars used to be the category serious smokers mocked. Around the espresso ritual they quietly became one of the most precise tools a humidor can hold.

Education · 3 min

When Regulation Runs in Reverse: Why Cigar Makers Want Their FDA Fees Back

After a decade of fighting the deeming rule, nine premium cigar companies are asking Washington to return the user fees they paid along the way.

Education · 3 min

How Nicaragua Became the World's Flavor Factory

From war scarred valleys to the shelves of every humidor, Nicaragua turned volcanic soil into the dominant voice in modern cigars.

Education · 2 min

What "Sun Grown" Actually Means (and Why the Leaf Pays for It)

The two words on the band describe a leaf that spent its whole life without shade, and it shows.

Education · 2 min

Top of the Plant, Top of the Punch: Ligero, Viso, and Seco

A tobacco plant is a ladder of flavors, and blenders climb it deliberately.

Education · 2 min

Habano Means the Seed, Not the City

The word on the band sounds like Havana, but your cigar probably grew up in Ecuador.

Education · 2 min

The Secret Math on Your Cigar: What 52 Really Means

The numbers on a vitola are a fraction in disguise, and they quietly predict how your cigar will taste.

Education · 2 min

Why the Darkest Cigars Are Often the Sweetest

That near-black wrapper is not a warning label. It is closer to a dessert menu.

Education · 2 min

Smoke Born of Volcanoes: Why Nicaraguan Cigars Taste Like Their Dirt

The boldest tobacco in the Americas grows in ash that used to be a mountain.