Share Photo/Alec Bradley
Last year was certainly an unlucky one, but maybe the luck of the Irish can help turn things around. In time for Saint Patrick’s Day, Alec Bradley has brought back its annual Black Market Filthy Hooligan and Shamrock holiday releases. The two seasonal smokes are shipping to retailers today.
Based on Alec Bradley’s Black Market blend, the Filthy Hooligan and Shamrock are presented in barber-pole fashion, meaning that the cigars are wrapped in multiple cover leaves of different colors to create a contrasting pattern that resembles a traditional barber pole.
The Filthy Hooligan ($10.50) comes in a bright green candela cover leaf against a darker Nicaraguan wrapper from the Jalapa Valley. The Shamrock ($12.50) is rolled in three wrapper leaves: green candela, dark Nicaraguan Habano maduro and a lighter shade of natural Nicaraguan Habano tobacco.
Photos/Peter Garritano
After five decades in the cigar business, there isn’t much that Ernesto Perez-Carrillo hasn’t done. He sits here in the aging room of his factory in the Dominican Republic.
Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Jr. has every right to be cocky. After five decades in the cigar business, his name resonates throughout the industry as a beloved, well-respected figure whose distinguished career lead him, in 2018, to the highest award any cigarmaker can receive
Cigar Aficionado’s Cigar of the Year. He’s also been inducted into the
Cigar Aficionado Hall of Fame, turned a local Miami cigar into a national brand and continues to produce cigars at his own factory on his own terms in the Dominican Republic. Of course, he isn’t cocky at all. Fifty years of toil seems to have had the opposite effect. Despite his enviable resume of achievement, he’s one of the nicest guys in the industry. So what does the guy who’s done