The Scotch giant celebrates Year of the Ox and 200th anniversary with special releases Share Photos/Johnnie Walker
Three recent Johnnie Walker limited editions showcase temporal significance. The renowned blended Scotch brand just released Year of the Ox, a special packaging of Blue Label that honors the Chinese New Year that begins today. The other two John Walker & Sons Celebratory Blend and The Legendary Eight Blue Label were designed for the company’s 200th anniversary and evoke whiskies from long ago.
The limited “Ox” bottling could not have been better timed given recent history, and all who have endured 2020 hope the message on the packaging is correct. The huge beast of burden is a symbol of strength in the Chinese 12-year cycle and the wording on the box heralds a year of good fortune, prosperity and growth. The bottle illustration, created by the artist Shirley Gong, is colorful with the rearing ox posed high
Share Photos/Habanos S.A.
When Habanos S.A. exhibited at the Virtual Travel Retail Expo in October, the star attraction was a travel humidor wrapped in a brown suede-like skin and filled with 14 Trinidad Robusto Extras. The release was meant for duty-free channels and airport shops, and the cigars inside appealed to aficionados who knew that the 6 1/8 inch by 50 ring gauge Robusto Extras inside had been discontinued in 2012, and now brought back for this limited release. But the pandemic has caused some changes in this release, and the humidors are appearing around the world in regular retail shops as well as the duty-free and airport shops that this release was intended for. As with all Cuban cigars, prices vary from region to region around the world.
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In an attempt to revive and transform its COVID-stricken economy, Cuba will significantly expand its private sector, authorities announced. The long-awaited change in economic policy was approved by the government Council of Ministers last week, according to the Communist Party newspaper,
Granma, and made public by the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó, on February 6.
“That private work continues to develop is the objective of this reform,” she stated, announcing that the government would lift most restrictions on small businesses in Cuba to help “free the productive forces” of the private sector. The reform is “an important step to increase employment,” Minister of the Economy Alejandro Gil added on Twitter.