On
Thursday, 11 December, Robbie Morton's Cordova Cigars, in Pensacola, FL, held a
party to launch "The Morton Collection," their 'house' brand.
The cigars were made for them by Camacho and Christian Eiroa and his posse was
in attendance to ad some additional spark to the event. "Additional spark ..."
because all the events at Cordova are well attended and last till the wee hours
of the morning. This one was no different.
In point of fact, the first shipment of the cigars had cleared U.S. Customs in
Miami that very morning, and Eiroa flew them to Pensacola in his plane.
The only unfortunate part of the day and evening was, that ski season had
arrived in Pensacola - it was 42 degrees - and the beautiful patio that Cordova
had recently added could not be utilized for the event.
Well, that statement stands correction. It was used, by Jerry Mistretta,
proprietor of Jerry's Cajun Café (www.jerryscajun.com),
across the street from Cordova, and the official purveyor of fine foods to all
their events.
Mistretta was standing on the patio, in his white chef jacket - I can’t recall
if he had put on long pants for the event, but, there he was cooking one of his
great pasta dishes for everyone who purchased a box of "The Morton Collection."
Inside, the hoi polloi were entitled to a table laden with specialties from
Jerry's café.
Packaged in beautiful green boxes - certainly well suited to the Christmas
season, and to St. Patrick's Day - the boxes were emblazoned with gold leaf
markings and came in a nice array sizes and two (2) distinct blends: Christian's
Cabinet and L2, the latter having been blended by Christian's very knowledgeable
and competitive father, Julio Eiroa. He and Christian are always battling over
who makes the best cigars. Luckily, for cigar enthusiasts, they all wind up
Camacho!
Christian's Cabinet comes is a Robusto (5 x 50), Corona (5.75 x 44), Toro (6 x
50), Torpedo (6.5 x 52) and a Churchill (7 x 48). There is only one (1) size in
the L2 - a Robusto, while the box press version is available in three (3) sizes:
Robusto, Lonsdale (6 x 44) and Churchill.
They are all packed in boxes of twenty-four (24), and the night of the
introduction, they were selling like 'hot cakes' to Cordova's very loyal,
enthusiastic, regular clientele.
There was quite a crowd of Cordova regulars and they started by vying to be the
first to purchase a box or two of the cigars. It was not possible for Christian
and Carlos Escalone to get all the boxes out of the shipping cartons and on the
display tables before they were being scooped up and taken to the counter for DJ
or John or Steph to ring them up!
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| Robbie and Steph Ackerman inspect the first
box |
Jerry Mistretta about to hustle up some
grub! |
Carlos Escalone, Camacho Florida Sales and
GJA |
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| Jeff Bass, local artist, presenting his
painting of "The Bay of Pigs" to Christian as a gift to his father, Julio
who participated in the assault |
The real 'Morton Collection': Robbie’s
customers, along side the cigars |
Christian, Robbie, Jerry and GJA at the end
of another terrific evening at Cordova |