delta1 wrote:...and are there still supplies of the tobacco used then? If hand made cigars are going to be regulated, I am glad that there are exemptions. However, given the variations in tobacco crops from year to year, I doubt that, say, a pre-2007 Padron 4000 can be replicated, even if they use the same 'blend."
If there will be fewer small cigar makers who now buy up a lot of premium leaves to make boutique blends, wouldn't that increase the supply of premium tobaccos with fewer potential buyers? Would those with exemptions buy and use those tobacco leaves in their exempted products, resulting in better cigars?
That's exactly why I brought up blend. It changes all the time. Hell, the variety of tobacco used can change, look at the blight & blue mold issues that have wiped out various strains of tobacco along the way. Some of the tobacco strains grown in the early 2000's don't even exist anymore. Yet the cigars persist with new strains, sometimes of different varietals.
Padron probably could replicate the cigars exactly. I doubt anyone other than them could achieve that feat, but yeah, they probably could, all the way down to the harvest date. They have so much tobacco stashed all over Esteli and the outlying areas, it's nuts. Of course if they did that, Jeorge would call it the "Umpity-dumpity Anniversary" and charge $50/stick for it. And proceed to sell out all inventory in minutes.