TOB Magazine

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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015
The warm weather months are filled with a plethora of stogie-centered
happenings, but the best ones are growing large with clever marketing hooks.
The stogie crowd likes to party—and with industry rules and
restrictions getting more tough and tense, it seems like there’s
always a cigar event happening somewhere.The warmweather
months are especially active, and this summer was no exception. On
alone, there were 60 industry events from around
the country posted for the second half of June; in August, there were
over 50 featured cigar events. September, October and November are
filling up nicely on the event map, too.
Cigar shindigs seem to be growing annually thanks to event
marketing strategies with a great hook or two. Here are three worthy
of a look:
Italian Breadcrumbs and Crab Gravy—The Italian culture is
one that injects food into almost any gathering, so it is no wonder
that husband-and-wife cigar-store owners from Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania would incorporate their Italian family recipes into
their successful cigar events.
“Let My People Smoke” is a 10-year-old cigar event held every
May by Twin Smoke Shoppe, touted as the “oldest cigar shop in south
Philly.” While cigar events are a regular happening at the store, the
May event is by far “my biggest event of the year, and we do it up right,”
says Anthony Renzulli, who has owned the shop with his wife, Maria,
since 2001. “My wife’s a phenomenal cook, so we offer home-cooked
Italian food here; we entice them partly through their stomachs.”
Held in a catering hall in New Jersey as a closed event, the 10th
anniversary cigar party could have been mistaken for an all-you-can-
eat family-style Italian restaurant, featuring meatballs and gravy,
lobster tails, lamb chops, oysters, clams, stuffed calamari, a carving
station and two of Maria’s family-recipe specialties that Renzulli says
Events With an Edge
By Renée Covino
In late June, the first New York Cigar Cruise on the 110-foot Klondike IX
cruised the East River from the tip of Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty
and back; “Part 2” is scheduled for September.