The Origins of Rocky Vintage
June 29, 2008 by Tommy
Many of the younger cigar smokers won`t remember this but back in 90`s it was called the “Cigar Boom.” At the time, there was a certain cigar based out of Connecticut; it was called Astral and it was $18.00-$28.00 (expensive by today’s standards).
It had a Connecticut broad leaf wrapper and was a Dominican binder rolled in the Dominic Republic similar to the Diamond Crown.
During the boom the company stock-piled tobacco and later went belly up because it marketed the cigar to be sold only through the wine wholesalers.
Well that tobacco sat there for years until Rocky Patel came across it and bought it all. That same tobacco turned into the 1990 vintage and 1992 vintage we have today. The rest is history and put Rocky Patel on the map.
And what happened to Astral? Well, its name was bought by General Cigar and released as a $4.00 to $8.00 cigar. Like all the other “money” names General marketed, it killed Astral once again.
I got hooked on Kahlua cigars. I assume it was owned by Drew Estates.
When I recently checked the Drew Estate web site, the Kahlua brand was dropped. I used to purchase my cigars from Mikes Cigars. They also dropped
the Kahlua cigars, and so did Thompson cigars.
What happened to Kahlua and can it still be found?
They are still around. Not sure if the production level is low (or completely dropped). BestCigarPrices.com still shows them available. I will look into it and thanks for the comment!
http://www.mydiscountcigar.com/cigars-kahlua-cigars-by-drew-estate.html
Kahula pulled it name off the cigar and did not want there image related to tobacco and cancer…. Imagine that a Alchol brand wants nothing to do with tobacco.
So finding the cigars will be harder but they are still out there and the eventually will get harder as the days go on due to this being a very popular cigar.