It was announced on the World Of Perdomo site last week that the brand new Perdomo Reserve Champagne Noir Super Toro and the Reserve Champagne Super Toro are now shipping!

The Perdomo Reserve Champagne Noir is blended with dark, oily triple-fermented Cuban-seed Maduro wrappers meticulously aged in bourbon barrels. Filled with hints of chocolate and dark roasted coffee, this medium to full-bodied blend offers a sweet aroma with a smooth satisfying finish. The initial size, an impressive 6 x 60 Super Toro, has been released and will be arriving in Australia in the next few days!

Here’s what Nick Perdomo had to say about the new line: “After carefully fermenting these thick Cuban-seed Maduro wrappers for well over 14 months in a natural pilon, we age them an additional 6 months in oak bourbon barrels. This process helps to ensure parallel colors, a clean even burn, and rich, complex flavours.”

The Perdomo Reserve Champagne Noir is comprised of all Nicaraguan grown tobaccos making it a “puro.” The Cuban-seed secos, visos, and ligeros are similar to those used in the popular Perdomo Reserve Champagne blend. The combination of the higher priming Cuban-seed Maduro wrappers and the smooth, flavorful Nicaraguan fillers, makes the Champagne Noir a vibrant and well-balanced smoking experience.

The Perdomo Reserve Champagne Noir is packaged in 25 count boxes which are individually hand-crafted in Tabacalera Perdomo’s state of the art box factory. Each Spanish cedar box is stained in black with the brand’s logo, size, and dimension prominently silkscreened in gold on the outside of the box.

We’ll let you know when they are available to be ordered!

“Lighting up in style: the gentleman’s smoking room is back” – apparently Paris is the place to be at the moment if you’re a cigar aficionado.

Apparently, French law still allows indoor smoking spaces provided they have state-of-the-art ventilation and that no staff operate inside. Why can’t we have intelligent laws like that in Australia?

“Top designer Philippe Starck has created an old-style cigar bar dubbed “La Fumee Rouge” (The Red Smoke), which opens in January as part of a revamp of the 80-year-old hotel off the Champs Elysees.”

Ah, makes me want to visit Paris even more than I did before!

Paris already holds a special place in my cigar history – I first met my partner ChrissyD (aka @fddlgrl) in France and the very first thing we did together was share a cigar! I remember riding Velib bikes from our hotel, down along the Seine, to the Eiffel Tower, where we lay down on the grass about midnight on Bastille Day and smoked cigars while looking up at the lights! Good times, good times.

“Other Paris smoker havens include the Cafe Germain, which has a smoking salon complete with pool table and a giant yellow sculpture of a woman — part of a zesty pop decor unveiled by Iranian designer India Mahdavi last year. Trendy electro club Le Pompon has a neo-kitsch basement smoking room complete with Liberty-print wallpaper, while punters at the Cubana Cafe can carry their mojito through to a leather armchair in the smoking salon next door.”

Here’s my favourite part of the article:

I have been struck by what seems the spontaneous camaraderie (not always the easiest thing to find in New York) enjoyed by those who frequent cigar bars. Also, as much as I hate second-hand smoke, particularly cigarette smoke, I can’t fully get aboard Mayor Bloomberg’s Orwellian plans to banish and tax smoking out of existence. I see lighting up a cigar at a ballgame, for instance, as an inalienable right, something the founders obviously would have written into the Declaration of Independence if they’d realized it was going to be a big deal two centuries later.

Read the full article here.

According to the BBC:

Mr Robaina, the only person to have a brand of Cuban cigars named after him, had been a roving ambassador for the country’s state-run cigar industry.
But more typically, he could be found on his small farm in the Vuelta Abajo region of western Cuba, tending his beloved tobacco plants.

As Jason tweeted:
They were right!! Cigars must be bad for your health. Don Alejandro Robaina dies at the young age of 91. May he RIP.