{"id":12564,"date":"2017-03-20T09:44:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T08:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cigars-connect.com\/a-cigar-for-the-internet-age\/"},"modified":"2023-07-20T09:47:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T07:47:41","slug":"a-cigar-for-the-internet-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cigars-connect.com\/en\/a-cigar-for-the-internet-age\/","title":{"rendered":"A cigar for the internet age"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Introducing Izambar: Rolled in Nicaragua and created from scratch by two aficionados without ever leaving their native Switzerland.<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>By<em>\u00a0Laurent Mimouni<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is the story of two Swiss aficionados in the Internet age. When we discovered Izambar cigars, launched a few months ago, we were expecting to hear the usual story of flights to and from the Caribbean and Europe, nostalgia for the countless hours spent in rolling rooms, and discussions with master blenders to find the perfect <em>liga<\/em>. In fact, the tale of Edmond (he goes by his first name only) and Antonio Urecht demonstrates that you can now make bespoke cigars \u2013 intended for mass production \u2013 from your armchair.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>From a shared passion to a common project<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The two men\u2019s first encounter set the tone: they met on Facebook\u2026 before finding out that they live just a few miles apart, on the banks of Lake Geneva. Following long discussions about their shared passion, Edmond, an interior designer by trade and the author of the blog \u201c<em>Les cigares selon Edmond<\/em>\u201d (\u201cCigars according to Edmond\u201d); and Antonio, who works in finance in Geneva, decided to embark on an adventure in the world of cigars, without knowing exactly what it would entail. First, they examined the possibility of opening an online cigar store, which is authorized in Switzerland, contrary to France. But the project was abandoned and the two men fell back on plan B \u2013 not necessarily any easier \u2013 to create their own cigar from scratch and market it.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Finding a factory<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst, we identified Nicaragua as the country best suited to our tastes,\u201d explains Antonio. \u201cThen we contacted around 10 factories by email. Five replied \u2013 most negatively \u2013 and just one made a proposal that met our requirements.\u201d It\u2019s a tiny factory, with 10 employees, which only produces 100,000 cigars per year. Antonio and Edmond won\u2019t say any more\u2026 other than the fact that the owners are Franco-Swiss \u2013 which made the rest of the adventure far easier for the two men, who don\u2019t speak a word of Spanish.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Skype, WhatsApp and Facebook<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There ensued a series of discussions on Skype and WhatsApp (an on-line messaging app), and samples sent by the post. \u201cThe factory sent us several samples, which we had to clear with customs at the Geneva free port,\u201d remembers Antonio. The two men gave their feedback \u2013 the first blend, for example, was too peppery to their taste \u2013 and the factory sent new cigar samples. Following a year of back and forth, the two men and their factory eventually found the right blend: an Estel\u00ed Jalapa filler covered with a Jalapa binder and an Ecuadorian wrapper. For the size, they opted for a fashionable format, the <em>toro<\/em> or <em>gros robusto<\/em> (21.4 \u00d7 158 mm). The boxes are made in Nicaragua but the bands are printed in Switzerland and sent over.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u201cYou don\u2019t need to spend three years in the Caribbean\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-25576 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cigars-connect.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/DSC1029-300x258.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"167\" height=\"144\" \/>\u201cNowadays, you don\u2019t need to spend three years in the Caribbean, like Zino Davidoff did in his day,\u201d notes Edmond. \u201cNot going out there also enabled us to smoke samples over here, in similar conditions to what our future customers will experience. When you go over there \u2013 especially the first time \u2013 all the cigars seem sublime, exceptional\u2026 but when you bring them back to Europe, you realize that they\u2019re nothing special.\u201d They placed a first order for around 5,000 cigars. When the cigars arrived in Switzerland, Antonio removed them from their boxes, allowing them to age in a humidor for a few months before returning them to their boxes for sale.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introducing Izambar: Rolled in Nicaragua and created from scratch by two aficionados without ever leaving their native Switzerland. By\u00a0Laurent Mimouni This is the story of two Swiss aficionados in the Internet age. When we discovered Izambar cigars, launched a few months ago, we were expecting to hear the usual story of flights to and from the Caribbean and Europe, nostalgia &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":8254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1051],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-en","category-the-world-of-cigars-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.3.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A cigar for the internet age &#8212; Cigars-connect<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cigars-connect.com\/en\/a-cigar-for-the-internet-age\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A cigar for the internet age &#8212; Cigars-connect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Introducing Izambar: Rolled in Nicaragua and created from scratch by two aficionados without ever leaving their native Switzerland. 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