Siglo Limited Reserve

[Snake Hips]

Originally Posted by JJG

ok that's pretty funny.

We all know that several NC cigar companies are making lots of dough selling cigars simply because the share the names of their famous Cuban counterparts, and I was thinking of what might unfold if Cubans became legal. I assume those companies could make a good case that they have the legal rights in the US to certain brand names and such.

nevertheless, wouldn't it be counterproductive of these companies to force Habanos to change the names of their most famous brands? considering they make their money selling red dot "Cohibos" etc...?

Imperial Tobacco owns many of the Cuban brand names as well as the non-Cuban brand names. General Cigar owns the rest. Imperial Tobacco > General Cigar. It won't be much of an ordeal; General will make some kind of financial settlement and that's that; nobody's going to change names.

As for the Pete Johnson discussion...is it really a double standard? He is blending, rolling and packaging his cigars in the Cuban style, but what's wrong with that? That's the original, old way to do it regardless of where it came from. He's not copying any brands with the same packaging, art, bands, vitola names, etc. or claiming to have 150 years of history that he doesn't like Altadis and General do. He's not copying anything of theirs really, he's just doing it in their style. The closest thing Pete does to that is La Riqueza, but that's not a current Cuban brand anyway.