Cigar Aficionado's Best Bargain Cigars of 2010

Finally justice would i almost say,
it's been a while that i wrote something on our Blogg, reason,
i was busy and a little sick, early november i woke up on a sunday morning
and realized i couldn't control my mouth, and left eye,
i thought what the heck is this, direct to the hospital i thought i am getting a sort
of stroke, well long story short i was somehow lucky, but it wasn't funny,
they checked me out and told me i had something called Bell's Palsy,

Long story short i went through a few terrible weeks of pain, therapy, and after six weeks the pain stopped, all in all i am much better now my mouth is moving 90% normal
and i hope it will get back to 100%

Back to the good news,
Cigar Aficionado awarded two of our cigars
part of the first six Best out of the Best Bargain Cigars of 2010,
with on one hand a 93 rating and on the other a 92 rating.

so i am very pleased, as you might understand, to read more about this please go to the website of our brand www.vallejuelocigars.com

hope you find a way to get your hands on one of these cigars they will be very soon available in the US.

i can really recommend to try this, and the best part is,
they won't burn your pocket !!

INTER TABAC 2010 DORTMUND - GERMANY

Just back from a trip to Europe which included a visit to the INTER TABAC 2010 in Dortmund Germany,

i arrived in Germany on Thursday 16 Sept, after a 3 hours drive coming from my Hometown 's-Hertogenbosch in Holland, unfortunately there was some heavy traffic so the planned 2 hours became a 3 hours drive.
I stayed in the Pullman Hotel opposite the exhibition center, the first night i walked into a bunch of german guys which i know for years so we smoked and had drinks till 3:30 AM,
the next day i had a great german breakfast with nice bread, (i miss the European bread, in the DR the bread sucks) when i parked on the parking of the exhibition center i saw the son of one of my German Clients so he luckely had had a pass arranged for me for the 3 days so i could walk into the show without any registration, Friday the first day of the trade show is always a little quite ,because retailers usually don't close their stores, so the friday is mainly international visitors from all over the world, for them it's easier to come to Germany then to go the the US (IPCPR) so i walked into Russians, Chinese, Indonesian,
Norway, Czech, Polish, Indian & Turkeys people, it's good i made sample cigar boxes which i handed over as my business card, you have to know that i didn't had a booth so i made sample boxes instead with my business card inside, see image,
the first day ended with a big come together party, with a great diner and a band playing, i shared the table with Nestor Andres Plasencia his Brother Gustavo Plasencia & the sisters Rachel & Patricia Quesada, a lot of other people where present, like Rocky Patel, Pete Johnson, Christian Eiroa, Pepin Garcia & complete family and many many more.

the second day was great i had several appointments with clients & potential clients, and some deals where sealed, the second night was reserved for a Mexican Party, when i left the Hotel i walked into Christian Eiroa who forced me to walk to walk with him to the Mexican Party, to after a 30 minutes walk in short sleeves, (temp. 12 celcius)we arrived at the Park Hotel, the Party was nice with a nice Mexican style buffet, after the party we decided to go out, so together with party Animal Rocky Patel, Christian Eiroa, Pete Johnson, David Blanco & the boys from humipack we headed downtown Dortmund to a place called Justin's.

Here we stayed and chilled out till 4 AM.

The next day and last day of the show i didn't feel very good, i was exhausted (Thank you guys) anyway i had some other meetings and 5 PM i decided to leave to drive to Holland to have diner with my parents and my brother & Family.

i arrived in Holland at 7.30 PM , went out for Diner , slept, and left the next morning early to Belgium to catch my flight to the Dominican Republic,

unfortunately for me my Fu.... flight had a delay of 13 HOURS !!!!!!
so the flight left at 1 AM and arrived in Puerto Plata the same night at 4:30 AM
(6 hours time difference) so all in all a Heavy trip.

it took me several days to get rid of the jetlag but i am back on track again, anjoying a cigar (while writing this) in Camp David Ranch here in Santiago.

intercigar launches website

Finally after weeks of work we finished our website,
still a few things i want to polish but i thought it is
good enough to put online for now.

so please have a look at our webpage, we are working also on a HTML version
for computers who don't support flash, this will take a few weeks to be ready

but for now we have the flash version up an running and we are very pleased with the result

www.intercigar.com

video's youtube

I made a direct link on the Blog (see below) to Youtube where i will post some video's once a while, mainly business related but sometimes some private stuff if funny or interesting.

Hope you like them

cheers

intertabak messe Dortmund - Germany

preparing stuff for the intertabak messe in Dortmund the probably largest tobacco show in the world with more booth's as the IPCPR - US,
for many people from asia and east europe its easier and closer to go to germany then to the US, the booth's in this show are average smaller then in the US but business is not bad, i would say a total different market in Germany but for sure interesting.
The show will be starting on the 17th and will last 3 days

i will keep you posted and will get some pictures & information while there or afterwards,

cheers

Website creation

I am currently finishing our website, it was really time to get the website done,
always under construction is not good, i wanted to create a site with general information about our activities and at the same time, allow an inside look in our factory, well imho i think we did a nice job, but judge yourself as our website will be on air www.intercigar.com

IPCPR 2010 New Orleans

Just Back from the Trade Show in New Orleans, for me it was the 3th time to go to New Orleans, the first time was a couple of years ago just before Katrina destroyed Nola and in 2009 and now,

I wasn't planning to go but on the last moment to many people where asking me to come over so i couldn't say no, well i don't regret going i did great business,
all in all i think that i sold .... cigars, the number i want to keep for myself
but i can tell i am more then happy.

thing is that a lot projects are taking place over the next months into next year
so the real number is hard to say.

for a private label manufacturer its always nice if people are looking for you and
what makes me even more happy is if my clients are doing well, if they do well we do well.

As expected the show attendance was low, not to many retailers took the time to come to New Orleans and the all over attendance compared to 2009 was at least 25% less,
what surprised me was the fact that the booth from companies like General cigar where packed, maybe the free food & drinks where atracting people but the booth was packed on the first and second day, the reason i was surprised is that a lot of retailers seem to hate doing business witg General, why ... the reason lays in the fact that general is owned by the swedish match / STG group who is also owner of cigars international a Bath - PA based internet retailer (discounter)
the complain of many retailers is that a lot of products sold by General cigar on the US market can be found frequently for close to wholesale prices on the Cigars International website, and this i really a pain in the A.. of the retailers,
so i was really surprised to see the General booth packed.

On this way General will continue doing what they are doing, well done retailers, keep buying from General Cigar.

Not my problem at the end of the day, but i would have a retail store i wouldn't buy from them anymore, that i can tell.

the food as always was great in Nola and i had some nice night going out with friends,
i was also invited by Ashton to join one of their dinners, which was really nice
all in all i had a great show (without having a booth) and i think that my show results are much better then the average company who spended a lot of money to have booth's and staff present at the show.