BOTL - I think I need to 'clear the air' and 'shed some light' on this whole LAS MAREAS topic.
For starters, this is not a "we-want-you-to-chase" LE release. Simply put, this is a preview of a preview of a 2016 regular production Crowned Heads brand.
Las Mareas is a project we began working on back in December 2015, when Pepin showed us an unbelievably gorgeous hand of tobacco--turned out that it was Corojo 99 wrapper leaf...that was NOT from a tobacco broker, but rather, was leaf that the Garcia family had started growing on their Namanji farm (about 20 miles outside of Esteli). Of course, I jumped at the chance to work with this leaf--and this past June we finalized a blend that incorporated 100% of the tobaccos (including this wrapper) from the Garcia farms. This would ultimately become our LAS MAREAS brand.
LAS MAREAS was always going to be a national release in Summer 2016, but we wanted to do a preview of this brand later this year, where we would release 2 of the 4 vitolas nationally. This strategy is no different than what we did back in 2012, releasing 1,000 boxes of Headley Grange Estupendos as a preview of the Summer 2013 national release of the Headley Grange line at that year's IPCPR.
We felt that the blend was ready-to-go, and so we decided to release 4 boxes (1 of each vitola) to 7 stores last week....essentially to gain some feedback. Our goal was to keep this 'low-key' and 'under the radar.' 4 of the stores were here in Nashville, 2 in Texas, and 1 in Arizona.
The 'low-key' idea went out the window when one of the shops in Texas decided they should blast the 'news' to over 3,000 ppl on their FB page. Wasn't too long after than (10 minutes?) that Halfwheel was texting me asking about Las Mareas.
SO....this is NOT a "state exclusive." This is NOT a "Limited Edition." This was NOT meant to be a 'chaser.' Again, it was a very small preview of a preview of a 2016 regular production line. We will still be releasing 2 of the Las Mareas vitolas nationally this coming November...
Hope that clears things up--if not, fire away with the questions, comments, and criticisms.
Cheers.
Jon Huber
Crowned Heads