{"id":41891,"date":"2021-07-11T11:18:31","date_gmt":"2021-07-11T09:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/?p=41891"},"modified":"2021-07-11T11:18:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T09:18:31","slug":"opening-day-pca-july10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/opening-day-pca-july10\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Day PCA July10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being in Las Vegas in July is always a delight especially when it is a balmy 116 degrees f (or 46.6 C) and nearly no humidity (8%).\u00a0 It makes for all cigars to taste great.\u00a0 Not so much.\u00a0 But the annual Premium Cigar Association\u2019s trade show kicked off Saturday morning with a breakfast and election of the new officers for the board of directors, then it was onto the trade show floor.<\/p>\n

Upon entering, the first thing you notice is the new booth for J.C. Newman Cigar Company.\u00a0 The company along with the Fuentes have had the same setup since 2001.\u00a0 This year though, the company unveiled a one of a kind booth complete with a cigar museum.<\/p>\n

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The booth is a one quarter scale model of the Newman\u2019s factory in Tampa, El Reloj or the clock in Spanish due to the clock tower.\u00a0 \u00a0When it opened in 1910 it was the largest cigar factory in the world.\u00a0 Drew Newman\u2014the family\u2019s fourth generation cigar maker\u2014says the whole model is made from 100 percent recycled cardboard and will be recycled at the end of the trade show. This is a one-time only booth! There are 2000 different pieces without any glue or staples, all interlocking together to create the replica.\u00a0 Instead of showcasing the company\u2019s products for this year\u2019s show instead the Newman\u2019s are honoring the family\u2019s history beginning with founder J.C. Newman who founded the company in Cleveland, Ohio in 1895.<\/p>\n

Walking into the replica building, not through the stairs but from the back, you see some of the museum pieces the family has accumulated over its 126 years.\u00a0 Holden Rasmussen\u2014the company\u2019s and quite possibly the industry\u2019s only company historian\u2014says there are old cigar boxes and a few other artifacts from the Newman\u2019s legacy since 1895.\u00a0 Rasmussen says this and much more are located in the museum housed in actual El Reloj in the Ybor City section of Tampa.\u00a0 Drew says the company now is offering tours of the museum and the factory every day and even offers cigar rolling classes.\u00a0 The factory makes Newman\u2019s All-American cigar, which uses only U-S tobacco, labels and boxes and now is rolling other cigars by hand in Tampa to show how important the cigar industry and its heritage is to Tampa and the United States.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the show floor, you notice the wide aisles and the smaller footprint for the show itself compared to years past. Part of the reason for the contracted space is that in 2019 the big four companies\u2014Altadis, General Cigar, Davidoff and Drew Estate\/Swisher \u2013 pulled out of the then IPCPR.\u00a0 While the trade show floor was much smaller without the big four, there are many new companies getting attention from the retail buyers.\u00a0 There are no estimates on show attendees, but many booths were quite active with buyers looking for specials and new products.<\/p>\n

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Many of the cigar makers offered those specials during the first few hours of the show, making the booth jammed packed. \u00a0But there still are many show-only cigars being offered.\u00a0 The show continues through Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The annual Premium Cigar Association\u2019s trade show kicked off Saturday morning with a breakfast and election of the new officers for the board of directors, then it was onto the trade show floor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":41892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[177,49,3042,44],"tags":[5559,6635,4895,6743],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}