Holt's announces Padilla's demise?

[StinkiMonki]

This thread is epic. There have been some great comments worthy of their own thread and being pinned to the top of this forum.

Stinki

 

[MX]

With my new hours at work, and new time zone, I have not been able to read the site as much as I would like. But, I am sure glad I chose this thread to open.

The insight and wisdom demonstrated here is in a class all it's own. I have dreams of one day knowing half as much as some of the friends (not members) in this community have forgotten.

You, gentelmen, always renew my faith.

Tim

 

[cigar1993]

Even in the best and largest of our local B&Ms, I always feel a little like I'm stealing out of an adult video store when I go to pay and leave. Why is that?



Best regards,
Wilkey

Gee whiz, frisk a guy one time and see what ya get? Actually Wilkey, I'm sorry you feel that way, we do go out of our way, I hope, to make our cigar customers comfortable, but your point is well taken, and I'd be interested in your thoughts on what might change that perception. Give me a call

 

[puffstuff]

Holt's = Ashton, which = San Cristobal, which took all the tobacco Pepin had available that was used to make Padilla. So therefore Holt's put him out and it just seems to be some tasteless gloating about something that was probably said behind the scenes.
Jcritt, Holt's does not distribute Pepin products. Pepin makes a few of cigars for them. I assure you, as I spoke with the folks over at El Rey De Los Habanos (Pepin's distribution company) this morning. That Pepin distributes Pepin products, not Holt's.

 

[Ginseng]

Even in the best and largest of our local B&Ms, I always feel a little like I'm stealing out of an adult video store when I go to pay and leave. Why is that?

Best regards,
Wilkey

Gee whiz, frisk a guy one time and see what ya get? Actually Wilkey, I'm sorry you feel that way, we do go out of our way, I hope, to make our cigar customers comfortable, but your point is well taken, and I'd be interested in your thoughts on what might change that perception. Give me a call

Hey,

Frisking I can handle, it's the thing with the rubber gloves that makes me, ahem, uncomfortable. ???

But seriously, Gary, I'd be happy to talk with you about my perceptions. I've dropped in occasionally (last time I chatted with Joe for awhile). I will say, that it's a little of what goes on in the humi but more so the cash out area that has a Kwik-E-Mart feel to it. Knowing the situation there, I imagine it's unavoidable, but still...

I hear that you're in the PP shop in the mornings. I'll stop in some time.

Best,
Wilkey

 

[Phlicker]

They certainly must have their hands full now with the Ashton brand, Casa Fuente, handshake and asskissing of the Fuentes and now Pepin Garcia.

It would certainly seem that Mr. Levin's lips are firmly planted on Carlito and Pepin's hindquarters (or other areas...). It's entirely Holt's right to promote the products of the manufacturers they have the best "relationships" with, but it reeks of disingenuousness as a retailer of many manufacturers' products when one displays such clear favoritism for a certain minority of them. I wonder how Jorge and Litto feel? Perhaps Holt's should just become an exclusive Fuente/Pepin dealer.

 

[tigger]

Sent an email to Holt's asking for their rationale for this ungentlemanly conduct.

Absent a reasonable explanation, I'll be having myself removed from their mailing list and not bothering to purchase Fuentes and Ashtons in the future.

 

[tone-ny]

I get Holt's catalog as I have purchased in the past, but like the other catalogs I get I don't read the ad copy and basically look at the pricing. It is a sad commentary that a vendor would take a pot shot at a supplier in print. Unfortunately that is the way of the current world at large. Everything is shoot from the hip, then find out the facts and report.

Some great dialogue has been posted on the subject. Nostalgia is a great thing as our perceptions of the way service was provided in a less wired world are fond. Tobacconists, Haberdasheries, Candy and Malt shops amoung so many service related places of a bygone era. We shop on-line for price therefore taking in inter-personal function out of the process.

My local cigar shop was an exception, the gentleman that ran the shop was in his late 80's. His son who helped out was in his early 60's. I never went when the son was at the store always looking forward to the interaction with the father. I bought him a cetain type of cigar as a way to say thank you for his running a great small shop were service and knowing his customers was all he was about. He passed away before Thanksgiving, my last recollection of him was sitting on their back deck of his house looking out to his deck and enjoying a cigar with him. He passed away a few weeks after that. His son is running the place and all I can say is I hope he sells it soon before it goes to pot.

 

[mmburtch]

So, I can understand the childish games, but I don't understand the rush to liquidate these cigars.

The premium Padilla lines are very good cigars, and if the lines survive the factory change and the enevitable blend change, they will never be the same again. There are more than a couple of cigars where this has happened in the past, and the retailers played it for all it was worth.

Beyond that, WTH? If you really want to liquidate all your remaining inventory, why make it impossible to find from your internet store?

 

[Ginseng]

Cash in the hand is worth two inventories in the bush.

I mangled that aphorism but you get the point.

Wilkey

 

[Phlicker]

What saddens me about this situation more than the fact that Holt's dropped Ernesto in a low-class manor is the "end of the innocence" feeling I now have towards a retailer I once felt was beyond reproach. Being from the Philadelphia suburbs, I always felt a sense of pride having a shop like Holt's literally in my back yard. While I wasn't able to go there often (due to the hassle of getting into and parking in the city), I always crowed about their selection and spot-on-MSRP prices, and whenever a BOTL visited from out of town, I made sure I brought him there to do a little shopping before taking him next door to Mahogany for a drink and a smoke.

As my knowledge about cigars has grown over the years, I began to realize just how silly certain mail order catalogs were in their shameless promotion of lower-quality products. The hyperbole, ridiculous adjectives, and tasting notes very few if any people could ever find (basically everything that Wilkey so eloquently already mentioned) really began to stand out. Holt's always seemed distinctive to me as a vendor of the "good stuff," and a straight shooter when it came to the description of the quality of their products. Things have definitely been changing, with this particular incident serving as the great "eye opener," and I feel a little like having just learned that my parents and Santa Claus were one and the same.

While I very much appreciate all the retailers who have shown us all so much generosity and service on this board over the years, it's a shame to think that the only way we as customers can develop personal client/vendor relationships anymore is through the relatively faceless realm of the internet.

 

[leafandale]

To get back to the original topic... disrespectful, plain and simple. Grind your axes behind the corporate walls. Discontinue the product, be done with it and move on. Holts gains NOTHING by using a tactic like this.

 

[Ginseng]

To get back to the original topic... disrespectful, plain and simple. Grind your axes behind the corporate walls. Discontinue the product, be done with it and move on. Holts gains NOTHING by using a tactic like this.

But somebody with authority must have believed that there was something to gain from this action. Aside from spite, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what that could be.

Wilkey

 

[MiamiCubano]

Cigar Ad copy should be taken with a generous amount of salt. It's a tradition in the cigar industry to sling the B.S.

Doc.

I've read enough J.R. Cigar and Thompson's catalogs to be well aware of that, Doc. Most of the time the copy is slanted to make less-than-stellar products seem like the next Opus-that-nobody-knows-about, though. This one just seemed a bit over the top, especially for Holt's.

Doc's been puffing for 30-odd years. I think he's potentially got some unique perspective on the matter. I'd ask him whether he thinks this is typical or whether this is unusual from a historical sense. In light of the recent public (on vendor's sites and elsewhere) acrimony between manufacturers and dealers, I'd be curious to hear whether he thinks this becoming a trend.

I've always had this romantic vision of the cigar business as a gentleman's business. Maybe that's becoming an outdated model under contemporary pressures for profit and share. One would think that there would be customers aplenty to go around, but maybe this is not the case.

Wilkey

Wilkey...first off I must say how much I enjoy you posts...they remind me of my days in college when we slung the lexicon of the English language to a point of delirium....you make me think and that's refreshing.

I read that mailer this morning while drinking my morning coffee and smoking a new Trinidad Coloniales I just received. I was in agreement until the last line of the dialog, no gentlemen taught in a proper manor of cigar tradition wrote that, I assure you. I have been smoking cigars over 30 years and when I posted a topic for discussion concerning Black Cat Cigars in reference to Don Pepin Garcia ( it was lost after Rod had to reset the server) and how he felt he was mistreated by him personally, most of the responders here chalked it up to a common business deal gone awry and nothing more, that the emotional context was overstated....but I totally disagreed. I thought a hand shake was as good as a signed contract....that's the way MEN did business for many years and the way this indusrty was built.

There was a time when you went into a cigar shop and everyone there was in a suit, shirt and a tie....it was like going into a Men's Haberdasher. You were greeted in a manor not seen today, at the door by a person who gave you his undivided attention while you were there, most times making a recommendation in addition to your favorite brand and gifting you a cigar to try right then and there...he cut it, charred the tip, handed it to you and provided the light from a large cedar switch. A conversation then proceeded about the cigar, it's origins, and then a personal anecdote about it's maker. At that point you joined in a group conversation with all the others making purchases. There truly was a touch of romanticism to the whole buying experience. I still remember the smell of the shops when I went with my Uncle...the creaky wooden floors, all the cigar display cabinets filled with every conceivable brand with boxes stacked openly, the giant fans slowly spinning on the ceiling, add the sight of all the customers smoking cigars, talking, laughing....drinking scotch, bourbon, or port wine that was offered by the owner and sales staff. The smell of cigar smoke was intoxicating...I still feel it every time I walk into a cigar shop to this day. The same people were in these establishments for as long as I can remember...that level of tradition to this retail industry died with them. When you shopped in this type of environment, it demanded a certain amount of respect.

...and now I'm sounding like a FOG treading through a cynical society....lol

Now don't get me wrong, there are many, many fine cigar shops out there and I tend to frequent the smaller owner operator type establishment where there is a measure of passion behind their means of making a living. People that have learned, not only of the current brands, but about their past and how it got to this point...'students of the leaf' as I say. They take the time to tell you about trends in the industry and who's hot and who's not. Who's brand has increased in quality and who's has suffered. Honesty. When I visit a cigar shop, I want to learn something new, not rehash what we all already know in a battle of cigar knowledge. Salaries as they are today dictate a thinner staff, but our society has bred a generation of individuals bent on serving themselves, devoid of conversation and random interaction. I have been to Holt's many times and have had some very interesting conversations concerning new and old smokes, so that comment seemed out of place from what I have witnessed in the past. But then again, things change, as did their business model. I'm sure they will say that the person that wrote that was only involved with the advertising part of Holt's and in no way has any reflection on the retail side of the business or it's views. But it's sad to say, I see this trend becoming more common every day...you never read comments like this before....they were more of a 'back room' type of discussion. But we now live in the Internet era where personal blogs are a way of life and everyone wants their 15 minutes....a personal pulpit in a manor of speaking.

Since my time here at CP, my faith in this older tradition has been renewed...although it does lack the personal touch of physical contact the way I was taught by my cigar mentors. Bombing a guy with a UPS package pales in comparison to handing a person a carefully selected bunch of cigars and witnessing the look on his face...while receiving a much appreciated hug in return. But here at CP, this tradition is much more far reaching...it makes friends across the world...and that is the lure of this version of the cigar passion.
I enjoy being a old guy learning new tricks...keeps you young....although the notion of being called a "newbie" takes some getting used to.

Keep up the good work gentlemen.

Cigar Ad copy should be taken with a generous amount of salt. It's a tradition in the cigar industry to sling the B.S.

Doc.

I've read enough J.R. Cigar and Thompson's catalogs to be well aware of that, Doc. Most of the time the copy is slanted to make less-than-stellar products seem like the next Opus-that-nobody-knows-about, though. This one just seemed a bit over the top, especially for Holt's.

Doc's been puffing for 30-odd years. I think he's potentially got some unique perspective on the matter. I'd ask him whether he thinks this is typical or whether this is unusual from a historical sense. In light of the recent public (on vendor's sites and elsewhere) acrimony between manufacturers and dealers, I'd be curious to hear whether he thinks this becoming a trend.

I've always had this romantic vision of the cigar business as a gentleman's business. Maybe that's becoming an outdated model under contemporary pressures for profit and share. One would think that there would be customers aplenty to go around, but maybe this is not the case.

Wilkey

Wilkey...first off I must say how much I enjoy you posts...they remind me of my days in college when we slung the lexicon of the English language to a point of delirium....you make me think and that's refreshing.

I read that mailer this morning while drinking my morning coffee and smoking a new Trinidad Coloniales I just received. I was in agreement until the last line of the dialog, no gentlemen taught in a proper manor of cigar tradition wrote that, I assure you. I have been smoking cigars over 30 years and when I posted a topic for discussion concerning Black Cat Cigars in reference to Don Pepin Garcia ( it was lost after Rod had to reset the server) and how he felt he was mistreated by him personally, most of the responders here chalked it up to a common business deal gone awry and nothing more, that the emotional context was overstated....but I totally disagreed. I thought a hand shake was as good as a signed contract....that's the way MEN did business for many years and the way this indusrty was built.

There was a time when you went into a cigar shop and everyone there was in a suit, shirt and a tie....it was like going into a Men's Haberdasher. You were greeted in a manor not seen today, at the door by a person who gave you his undivided attention while you were there, most times making a recommendation in addition to your favorite brand and gifting you a cigar to try right then and there...he cut it, charred the tip, handed it to you and provided the light from a large cedar switch. A conversation then proceeded about the cigar, it's origins, and then a personal anecdote about it's maker. At that point you joined in a group conversation with all the others making purchases. There truly was a touch of romanticism to the whole buying experience. I still remember the smell of the shops when I went with my Uncle...the creaky wooden floors, all the cigar display cabinets filled with every conceivable brand with boxes stacked openly, the giant fans slowly spinning on the ceiling, add the sight of all the customers smoking cigars, talking, laughing....drinking scotch, bourbon, or port wine that was offered by the owner and sales staff. The smell of cigar smoke was intoxicating...I still feel it every time I walk into a cigar shop to this day. The same people were in these establishments for as long as I can remember...that level of tradition to this retail industry died with them. When you shopped in this type of environment, it demanded a certain amount of respect.

...and now I'm sounding like a FOG treading through a cynical society....lol

Now don't get me wrong, there are many, many fine cigar shops out there and I tend to frequent the smaller owner operator type establishment where there is a measure of passion behind their means of making a living. People that have learned, not only of the current brands, but about their past and how it got to this point...'students of the leaf' as I say. They take the time to tell you about trends in the industry and who's hot and who's not. Who's brand has increased in quality and who's has suffered. Honesty. When I visit a cigar shop, I want to learn something new, not rehash what we all already know in a battle of cigar knowledge. Salaries as they are today dictate a thinner staff, but our society has bred a generation of individuals bent on serving themselves, devoid of conversation and random interaction. I have been to Holt's many times and have had some very interesting conversations concerning new and old smokes, so that comment seemed out of place from what I have witnessed in the past. But then again, things change, as did their business model. I'm sure they will say that the person that wrote that was only involved with the advertising part of Holt's and in no way has any reflection on the retail side of the business or it's views. But it's sad to say, I see this trend becoming more common every day...you never read comments like this before....they were more of a 'back room' type of discussion. But we now live in the Internet era where personal blogs are a way of life and everyone wants their 15 minutes....a personal pulpit in a manor of speaking.

Since my time here at CP, my faith in this older tradition has been renewed...although it does lack the personal touch of physical contact the way I was taught by my cigar mentors. Bombing a guy with a UPS package pales in comparison to handing a person a carefully selected bunch of cigars and witnessing the look on his face...while receiving a much appreciated hug in return. But here at CP, this tradition is much more far reaching...it makes friends across the world...and that is the lure of this version of the cigar passion.
I enjoy being a old guy learning new tricks...keeps you young....although the notion of being called a "newbie" takes some getting used to.

Keep up the good work gentlemen.

That was a very fine post ironpeddler, and I for one will not consider you a newbie by any means from here on out. I wish things were today as you remember them in the past.

Unfortunately the present time doesn't resemble that at all. Gentlemanly treatment seems dead and greed and profit are much in style, as I'm sure it always was but at least they once had the common sense to treat you right before taking your money. Add that to the harsh nonsmoking movement and we don't have much to look forward to.

Please tell me I'm just paranoid, and thinking too negatively.

Well-stated. Among the reasons why I love Nat's, and, in addition to always going there everytime I am in NYC, continue to extend them my patronage via web orders.

This Holt's travesty simply serves to further strengthen my resolve to never place an order with them, nor to recommend them to anyone else. Utterly classless and most distasteful.

 

[Padilla cigars]

Cigar Pass Members,

I was alerted to both the recent Holt's catalog and this thread and
wanted to reply to both.

First, I want to thank everyone for their input on this thread.
Itís nice to see that most people can see beyond whatís written in a
cigar catalog. It is unfortunate that in their attempt to close out our
product that they had to write such incorrect and inflammatory copy.
While everyone is entitled to their opinions, there are many factual
inaccuracies in that copy that I would address.

As you all know, Pepin, Ashton and Holt's have become very close in
recent months. Because of their growing relationship, Padilla Cigars
knew that eventually we would have difficulty securing the cigars we
needed to grow as a company. We also knew that in order for us to take
the next step as a cigar company, we would have to manufacturer our own
cigars. That is why Pepin and Padilla mutually agreed to part ways.
This split has given us the opportunity to build our own factory so we
can better control both our blends and our inventory. Leaving the
Pepin factory was difficult, but as you will see, we believe this move
will result in better blends and better cigars. And you have my promise
that Padillaís existing blends will retain both the quality and the
flavor you have come to expect from us.

In the coming months, once the factory is complete, you will see
Padilla Cigars in the marketplace stronger than ever. We will have more
inventory than ever and will continue to create the best boutique blends
on the market. Despite what Holt's might think, we are definitely
NOT on our way out.

Also incorrect is their description of our relationship with Oliva
Cigars. I continue to have a wonderful and productive relationship with
Jose Oliva and his family continues to have an impact on Padilla
Cigars.† The Habano blend is still the product of our relationship with the
family.

We are working with the Oliva family to formally address this issue
with Holt's. We donít know how this will resolve itself, but as was
stated in this thread earlier, take everything you read with a grain of
salt.

The reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated.
Ernesto Padilla

 

[tigger]

Interesting - It appears that Sathya Levin has posted an apology in a thread I started about this over at CF.

Good eye Philcker! Guess I won't be needing that scan after all.

 

[MadMonk]

Mr. Padilla,
Thank you. I like the new 48 & 68. I'm not versed enough on the on the 48, but I understand that the 68 is made in Honduras? If that is any evidence of things to come, I suspect you'll have my full attention. I do hope the Miami and 1932 remain the same, or if not exact, still supremely flavorful, complex, rounded, etc. I sort of figure it this way, If your palate likes it, there is a good chance mine will.
Here's to your continued success, in your honor, I'm smoking my last 1932 Curchill.

 

[Phlicker]

tigger started a thread over at CF to bring up the same issue, quoting my post in this thread. While many people doubted his source ( :sign: ), here was one post that was just made. I thought it appropriate to copy here in light of Ernesto's post:

On behalf of Holt's, I want to issue an apology to Ernesto Padilla and Padilla Cigars for the tenor of recent comments in our Father's Day 2008 Catalog. The tone of these comments and the copy in question steps over the line of good taste. I assume personal responsibility as part of my role at Holt's is to approve final copy, and in the rush of going to press, this one slipped past me. For over 100 years, Holt's name has been synonymous with high-quality products, premier customer service and a respect for our customers and our industry and this copy does not comport with those high standards.

Sincerely,
Sathya Levin
Holt's Cigar Company

 

[Ginseng]

Ernesto,

Thank you for coming here to let us know what is and has been going on. I think I speak for the entire CigarPass community when I tell you how much we appreciate such frank and honest communication from a respected manufacturer and force in the industry.

Best regards,
Wilkey Wong

Now, who's going to drop Sathya Levin a line and give her a chance to respond directly to this community? BTW, I think she responded in the best possible way under the given circumstances.

 

[Devil Doc]

Ya, right, It's not my first day on the beach.

Doc.