Return of Old Favorites?

[Walter19]

Newer guy to the forum, so forgive me if this has been beaten like a dead horse!

Has there or do you think we will ever see a return of smaller gauged cigars that are discontinued today? Lets just use the HUPC as an example.

Lets take this further, do you believe returns of discontinued brands will return, either as a whole or special release? La Escepcion comes to mind.

[mprach024]

4 minutes ago, Walter19 said:

Newer guy to the forum, so forgive me if this has been beaten like a dead horse!

Has there or do you think we will ever see a return of smaller gauged cigars that are discontinued today? Lets just use the HUPC as an example.

Lets take this further, do you believe returns of discontinued brands will return, either as a whole or special release? La Escepcion comes to mind.

Who knows, but signs point to the direction being the other way.  Might get lucky with some regional or lcdh releases.  

[JZBdano]

I don't think there's much of a chance that they'll bring back or add any reasonably priced cigars under 50rg.  

[Tstew75]

Not a chance.

Fatties are what the majority of the buying public favor, and Habanos is taking the easy route by DQing classics in favor of a slew of 54/55rg jaw-breakers.

Hearbreaking....but we should all buy as many skinnies, coronas, coronas gordas etc as we can & maybe they're make a comeback lol

[gojira]

The only new slimmer RG releases nowadays are regional editions and they tend to be a bit pricey.

[Bijan]

2 hours ago, JZBdano said:

I don't think there's much of a chance that they'll bring back or add any reasonably priced cigars under 50rg.  

Not necessarily true (regarding adding new ones) in the shorter formats it seems.

Trinidad Reyes and Coloniales 2004

HUHC 2011

RG Perlas 2012

Vegueros Mananitos and Tapados 2013

Monte MC 2015

RyJ Petit Royales 2017

All rather short except the Coloniales though.

[NSXCIGAR]

I would say 50 is a bit extreme. 44 seems to be the lower limit for all practical purposes. The RG Perlas was a strange outlier that just kind of appeared out of nowhere. I had to double check to see that they hadn't been around forever. The Trini Reyes have been around since 04, certainly a time when a new 40 RG would have been totally conventional.

I would expect more Half Corona sizes (44-47 RG). I would love to see more Hermosos No. 1-3 (48 RG) but HSA seems very avoidant of those. Only the Punch 48 is regular production and the other handful of Hermosos vitolas have been sporadic special releases. 

43-47 RG seems like a dead letter. My favorite vitola, the Franciscos (44 RG), has been seen once since 2011 (RAAE). Dalias--I hope the Punch 898's success can get some more of those going for special releases. 

We just got the first 51 RG with the Connie 2--maybe we'll get a 45 RG at some point!

 

[LordAnubis]

The recent releases have tended to long fatties, and short thin cigars. Targeting two markets i think. First for the big show off cigar smokers as the world in general is shifting into more middle class and hence people are looking to cigars and their thoughts are big and fat is good. Second the smaller cigars for the regulars and money concious who are moving to shorter time smokes and also lighter cigars which cost less in tobacco tax. 

Since 2010, of the 53 releases, 34 have been more than or equal to 50rg. Of these, 7 have been petitie robustos. Of the 23 releases above 52 rg, 9 have been smaller than 130mm.

Of the 19 cigars below 50 rg, 6 have been cigarillos. 12 releases were between 40rg and 50rg. Of these, 2 (Quintero Brevas and Monte Dumas) have been above 130mm, with the rest being mostly in the 100mm range.

There is some hope though, 2 releases of "retro" lines. Granted those relelased already exist in that marca anyway and its just a packagind gimmick, but there's rumour that the line will extend to other brands next so that may be interesting... still no hope for HUPC though

[JZBdano]

8 hours ago, Bijan said:

Not necessarily true (regarding adding new ones) in the shorter formats it seems.

Trinidad Reyes and Coloniales 2004

HUHC 2011

RG Perlas 2012

Vegueros Mananitos and Tapados 2013

Monte MC 2015

RyJ Petit Royales 2017

All rather short except the Coloniales though.

So you're telling me there's a chance. 

 

Thanks for pointing this out.  I forget about the little guys sometimes.

@LordAnubis thank you for providing the stats.  Very interesting. 

[Benz1209]

Maybe people jaws will start to ache too much ?. But in reality this is a result of cigars becoming more novel. Possibly more people who don't know much about cigars are buying them more. We can never predict trends, specially into the far future but we will have to see.

Irrelevant side note: I tend to compare the move away from longer skinny vitolas to fatter ones like how SUVs are becoming more popular than the traditional sedan in the car market. The two shifts in popularity seems very similar for some reason.

[Joeyjojo]

Anecdotally speaking I have seen some 'boutique' new world companies starting to produce lanceros and slightly smaller cigars in general. 

Hopefully (although it may take several years), as Cuba started to make larger cigars due to the NC trend for 55+RG cigars, the trend will eventually cycle back and we can see smaller ring gauge CC. 

 

 

[CaptainQuintero]

  When fashions change then they will be back, it's just a matter of time... and if there is still a tobacco industry left when that change does happen.

  I don't expect it to be anytime soon though