WORLDWIDE LAUNCH OF THE NEW RAMON ALLONES ALLONES NO.2 : Nick Hammond

[argrovesjd]

I love Ramon Allones and I'm sure I will try this cigar - but : those two HSA videos are marketing overkill.

First one is rethorical hot air hyperbole and second one is senseless publicity for a non-existing market.
Hope the cigar can stand on its own feet. I might be wrong but the wrapper looks like fire-proof asbestos.

I’ve now seen photos of this cigar from three different sources. Each has looked very rough.


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[Taco]

The second video seems to be aimed at a younger audience. Beautiful people in their palaces smoking elegant cigars. In the age of social media and thirst to be rich and famous, they nailed it. All I need to do now is smoke one of those magical Ramón Allones No.2s and wait for the transformation to occur {takes puff, winks, and thumbs up}.

[Nino]

20 hours ago, El Presidente said:

You should have been at the launch of the Montecristo Open. 

HSA is a marketing organisation. 

 

I was also at the Karl Marx that evening for the launch of the MC Open. Nice spot for a nap in the dark while they rolled the stage show.

What I remember most is the video marketing overkill about the Open - golf courses, sailing yachts and beautiful people - we all laughed, it was so totally un-Cuban, more like a Dom. Rep. cigar resort promotion.

To be fair, I'd rather go for the Ramon Allones - the Open was a failure from the start.

[GavLew79]

7 hours ago, argrovesjd said:

I’ve now seen photos of this cigar from three different sources. Each has looked very rough.


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The sample was toothy and rough at the cap end, but the box is pretty good to be fair. 

[NSXCIGAR]

3 hours ago, GavLew79 said:

The sample was toothy and rough at the cap end, but the box is pretty good to be fair. 

Wow, that one you're holding is very rough looking, which is never good for an EL. 

You'd think they'd have figured out how to at least make the EL wrappers better looking after 20 years when they were admittedly inferior for export. I get it, they're upper tapado, but at least take some care in selection and fermentation to make sure they burn well if they're going to be thick and gnarly.

 

6 hours ago, nino said:

What I remember most is the video marketing overkill about the Open - golf courses, sailing yachts

Well, they at least got that right--golf and sailing are about the only activities one would ever smoke an Open at because if you drop it, step on it or it flies into the water you don't care. It's actually a perfect product in that regard!

[Hammer Smokin']

The wrappers on the 2018 Upmann Propios were also very rough and toothy.

Still enjoyed the few I've smoked, but none were what we'd consider "beautiful".

[Mr.T]

I watched the LD and Nick review. I particularly enjoyed the PL analogy of this cigar. LD says Everton and Nick said Liverpool so I’m going with Nick on this one ...no idea though if this cigar lives up though to such lofty standards


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[john007]

I didn’t love the 2011 Ramon allones, same for the ‘15. So what do I do...grab a box of these bad boys. I try to stay away from the limitadas these days, but couldn’t resist the size. 

[NSXCIGAR]

I caught LD saying in his and Nick Hammond's review vid that production on these is only 60,000 sticks? And the entire UK allotment is only 6,000 sticks? I find that extremely hard to believe for an EL. That's the minimum run for any ER these days. If this is true these are going to be gone by the end of the year. 

[Tstew75]

Man those wrappers look rough...I think it's crazy they don't use the best wrappers possible for ELs.

I'm not sure why i care, I'll continually be fading new ELs in favor of fire reg-prod stuff from 19/20-

[NSXCIGAR]

11 hours ago, Tstew75 said:

I think it's crazy they don't use the best wrappers possible for ELs

The whole point of the EL program was to use the worst wrappers possible!

As I stated above, though, you'd think that after 20 years they'd look a little better. To my eyes, there's really not much visual difference between the wrappers on the 19 ELs and any of the 00 ELs. I mean, they could at least use only the top 50% of the upper tapado crap they designate for this program now that they're charging twice as much as they did in the early days.

 

21 hours ago, john007 said:

I didn’t love the 2011 Ramon allones, same for the ‘15. So what do I do...grab a box of these bad boys. I try to stay away from the limitadas these days, but couldn’t resist the size. 

I thought both were ok, but not great. I did very much like both vitolas, the 11 Franciscos being my all-time favorite vitola. This No. 2 is going to need to be a big step up. 

[Fugu]

22 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I caught LD saying in his and Nick Hammond's review vid that production on these is only 60,000 sticks? And the entire UK allotment is only 6,000 sticks? I find that extremely hard to believe for an EL. That's the minimum run for any ER these days. If this is true these are going to be gone by the end of the year. 

That green lacquer just wasn‘t easy to source.....

[NSXCIGAR]

So I wasn't aware the 05 UK release was actually Belicosos Finos. CCW has it as Belicosos. I see a box just went up on BR: https://www.bondroberts.com/product/view/2444 which shows Belicosos Finos. Hadn't seen that so I checked and sure enough here's the box pic from the Halfwheel review:

Will be interesting to see how much the BR listing goes for. Based on prices I saw a few years ago it should be well north of $2,000. 

Might want to update that name @ATGroom

[ATGroom]

5 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

So I wasn't aware the 05 UK release was actually Belicosos Finos. CCW has it as Belicosos.

Might want to update that name @ATGroom

Just had a quick Google, and a LOT more places seem to be calling it the Belicoso than the Belicosos Finos. Possibly that's my fault. The only pics of the side of the box I could find were the Halfwheel and the BR, but you are correct and both say Belicosos Finos.

One of the places that calls it Belicosos does give me pause...

[smitte3]

The thumbs up at the end won me over.  The 2nd video had a Game of Thrones vibe to it.

[SCgarman]

On 8/23/2020 at 10:08 AM, Tstew75 said:

Man those wrappers look rough...I think it's crazy they don't use the best wrappers possible for ELs.

I'm not sure why i care, I'll continually be fading new ELs in favor of fire reg-prod stuff from 19/20-

Personally I wouldn't buy any cigars with wrappers that look like those dog turds. They look terrible.

[NSXCIGAR]

17 hours ago, ATGroom said:

a LOT more places seem to be calling it the Belicoso than the Belicosos Finos.

I too had never seen them referred to as Belicosos Finos either, only Belicosos which is odd if all the boxes say BF. It was 2005 and early in the special release days, not many of these were produced and no CCW at the time so it's possible it got lost in the shuffle. Obviously after CCW everyone's referencing that, but the Finos must have been already dropped in usage when Trevor originally inputted the info. He was clearly looking at something for reference that was missing the Finos. 

The H & F collection above omitting the Finos is odd, but obviously it was produced recently (after 2017) and it's possible they didn't actually confirm the actual box name and thought as we did. They may have thought they imagined the Finos in the name as that's always been Boli. Easy to think one could be confused. It's also possible H & F's original commission was for the name "Belicosos" and HSA sent "Belicosos Finos" over to the printer either by mistake or thinking H & F did want BF. So H & F records would have reflected only "Belicosos" even though the boxes were printed with BF. No one would have known until the boxes arrived in the UK. And with the limited number made they probably were all produced in one run and arrived at the same time and H & F's original records would have indicated only "Belicosos".

As we know, when in doubt, what's on the boxes is almost always definitive. Since we can't find a box omitting the "Finos" I think we can officially call this cigar BF. 

[NSXCIGAR]

I'm really not seeing these available yet outside of one or two UK vendors at high prices. 

[KavalanWhisky]

Managed to get a couple of boxes in HK, haven't smoked one yet as I'm letting them rest but will probably try one in a few weeks.