UK Cigar Scene Magazine September Issue 9 | Page 28

IPCPR 2015 Report from New Orleans Recently returned from ‘The Big Easy’ Simon Jackson owner of Mysmokingshop in Preston has had time to reflect on his time spent at the huge IPCPR 2015 Cigar trade show in New Orleans. Here is his report for UK Cigar Scene: “After a good few hours travelling and a few time zones jumped we finally landed in New Orleans on Thursday evening, just enough time to grab a bite to eat, smoke a cigar and get acclimatised. On Friday morning we set off, myself and Scott Vines of TOR Imports, for a short stroll to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Centre where this year’s event was to take place, we needed to register in preparation for the next days ‘Big Show’. The first thing that hit you was the sheer size of the Convention Centre, we entered at the main front doors and it took a further 20 minutes of fairly brisk walking to eventually arrive at the registration desks. Once registered we slipped into the main hall to get a quick preview of what was to come. After this, with a free day ahead, we headed to Don Leoncio Cigars for a smoke in comfort and the company of Jose Oliva from Oliva Cigars. The first day of the show was finally here, up bright and early and ready for a long day ahead, myself and Scott arrived and joined the queues waiting for the doors to open. They opened, and wow! where to start, Scott had plenty of meetings so I decided to go it alone. First booth I hit was Daniel Marshall and had a great chat with the 27 man himself about the quality of his work; a selection of his humidors will be available from Mysmokingshop very soon. I continued down the hall with the plan of starting at one end and working my way past each booth so nothing was missed, 6 hours later I hadn’t even passed half way! I found a couple of great cigars, the first was Buho which intrigued me at first with their very small range, I grabbed a sample from them as was blown away with the quality, an order was placed and they are on route. The next company that really grabbed my attention was Romacraft, unfortunately they are not ready to export this year, and hopefully we will see them soon in the UK. The most notable cigar of the day was the Cabinetta Series from Joya de Nicaragua Cigars, a cigar that is definitely going to be a favourite of mine for a long long time. What an idea! The taste of a Maduro with the smoothness of a Connecticut. After a very enjoyable evening courtesy of Ashton Cigars, day two arrived very quickly. My first port of call was a meeting with JC Newman,