El Habano Moderno Launch Party - Melbourne Saturday July 30th, 2023

[rondogg]

Folks who have this - is it worth buying it ? Future knowledge etc

[JohnS]

1 hour ago, rondogg said:

Folks who have this - is it worth buying it ? Future knowledge etc

Put it this way...that's like trying to find anyone who regrets purchasing Min Ron Nee's, "An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars" twenty years ago. I'm yet to meet anyone who fits that description.

[rondogg]

@JohnS ya bloody legend signing up meowx

[ha_banos]

1 hour ago, JohnS said:

Put it this way...that's like trying to find anyone who regrets purchasing Min Ron Nee's, "An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars" twenty years ago. I'm yet to meet anyone who fits that description.

And contrast with those who never got hold of a copy and now do regret it. 😕

[Puros Y Vino]

3 hours ago, ha_banos said:

And contrast with those who never got hold of a copy and now do regret it. 😕

Sorry....couldn't resist.  😁  TBH. I hemmed and hawed about pre-ordering.  I told myself "well it'll have the same content as CCW so why bother?"  or "I can't wait a year for something I paid for now!"  etc, etc. And as to John's point about MRN's book.  Glad I pulled the trigger on what I then thought was an expensive $150 purchase.  To me, this book is that books spiritual successor.  Keep your fingers crossed for reprints I guess?

 

[ha_banos]

1 hour ago, Puros Y Vino said:

Sorry....couldn't resist.  😁  TBH. I hemmed and hawed about pre-ordering.  I told myself "well it'll have the same content as CCW so why bother?"  or "I can't wait a year for something I paid for now!"  etc, etc. And as to John's point about MRN's book.  Glad I pulled the trigger on what I then thought was an expensive $150 purchase.  To me, this book is that books spiritual successor.  Keep your fingers crossed for reprints I guess?

 

To be clear im referring to the IEOPRHC!

 

 

[anthem]

On 8/15/2023 at 7:49 PM, ATGroom said:

They have been going out in batches daily since the first week of August, so are starting to arrive in numbers this week. The estimate is that all the pre-orders will have gone out at latest by the 25th.

I don't know how the despatch order is determined - order number would be my guess. They are shipping from a warehouse in the US so proximity to that would have some effect on your transit time. All via UPS as far as I know, so shouldn't take too long anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in one but haven't ordered, I encourage you to do so soon. There are only a few hundred left. The publisher is telling me 3-6 months for a reprinting, which from them historically means 12-18 months so my advice is get on it now. https://www.helios.house/shop/p/el-habano-moderno

I emailed Helios House today, and they responded that all pre-orders have been mailed out.  Newer orders, including mine, should be shipping beginning next week.

[ATGroom]

17 hours ago, rondogg said:

Folks who have this - is it worth buying it ? Future knowledge etc

There is actually a tonne of stuff in there that isn't on CCW. The information pages of CCW are more or less untouched since whatever Trev had on there in 2012.

Those pages were the basis for my first draft of EHM, but then I went from there and entirely rewrote everything, and as I was doing that I tried to research an answer any questions that came up. Some of that stuff might make it back into CCW at some point, but in many ways the site isn't really suited to little tidbits of information in the same way you can do on a book.

The same thing with the cigar listings - they started out as the info from CCW, but I added any little anecdote or backstory I could and that stuff won't necessarily make it back to CCW.

I also retook all the CCW photos for the book, and took thousands of additional ones. A lot of those have made it back to CCW (particularly if you backed the Kickstarter and have access to the image gallery), but a lot haven't.

It's not intended as a replacement for MRN. MRN covers 1980-2002. EHM covers 2002-2022. There is very little overlap.

Compared to the MRN book, in my opinion you get better information about the production processes etc (probably the main comparable book for that stuff is The Great Book of the Habano). What you don't get is tasting notes. I thought about adding them, but the fact is I haven't been smoking 5 cigars a day for the last 20 years and I don't have the budget or the inclination to smoke multiple examples of every regional from different boxes over many years etc. I also don't really have the palate for it. It may be something I add in a far future edition, maybe using some kind of consensus tasting panel or something like that.

At the time MRN came out also people were still largely following Zino Davidoff's ideas about ageing, so MRN's take on that was ground breaking in many ways. If you've been around FOH for years and you know that all plume is mould and that a little dryer than 70/70 might be better, then you won't get anything similarly revelatory out of me.

The other thing is photos - for the cigars, MRN almost entirely used photos from the Habanos catalogues, and if you look at them closely they are total garbage. The reason he used them was because he didn't want any discussion about whether things were fake. My photos are all super high res and you can really see the texture of the tobacco. If you spot any fakes please let me know.🤪 I also have high res scans of almost every band, which I'm sure will be of great benefit to any counterfeiters out there.

When I first got my hands on an MRN in around 2004 I was fairly new to cigars so all the old releases and special humidors were stuff I had never seen before and were fascinating to me. I guess the same thing applies here: if you've been active in the scene for 20+ years and have kept tabs on all the releases then there won't be anything new to you here. If you only started smoking in 2019 then I'm sure you will find the old regionals and various humidors fascinating.

I wasn't really involved in the pricing discussions. I probably would have wanted them cheaper, however, the fact is, it's a lot of book for the money.

The only similar books in my collection are the Modernist Cuisine series. Those are a similar level of production at a higher price per page. The Impossible Collection of Cigars I guess is comparable - those are a step up in production quality from EHM but cost 5x the price, and have 10% as much information in them. I don't think any other cigar book can challenge it on the amount of information you get per dollar.

If you have enough budget for a cigar collection of 10+ boxes, you have the budget for one of these books. If you don't have the budget for that kind of collection, well, maybe this book would be nice for you to leaf through and dream.

[LOMTL]

@ATGroom outstanding, outstanding work. Thank you.

Curious about where to find workable high res Vista / Marca images?

[ATGroom]

5 hours ago, LOMTL said:

@ATGroom outstanding, outstanding work. Thank you.

Curious about where to find workable high res Vista / Marca images?

I just scanned them from boxes.

[Chas.Alpha]

On 8/26/2023 at 10:08 PM, ATGroom said:

Not sure what you mean here, but please email contact@helios.

Sent to my old address in Florida. Good news, it allowed me to reach out to my old neighbor Falsario to forward them. Small price to pay for the opportunity to hook back up with a great friend!!!

Fantastic books! I got the Backer/Retail set, the red cover for my friend/shop owner Alex (Cutter’s Cigar-Brandon FL) and the baby blue for me😀

[TR]

Put it this way...that's like trying to find anyone who regrets purchasing Min Ron Nee's, "An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars" twenty years ago. I'm yet to meet anyone who fits that description.

My only regret is not buying multiple copies.

[PuroDiario]

I received my Collector’s Edition in the mail late August. 
Absolutely outstanding and worth every penny. Great work across all, and great touch with the 2023 update

[Connoisseur Kim]

At last, I received El Habano Moderno Collector's Edition today. As a big fan of CCW, I've been always wanted to see CCW in a book format since it would be a great educational cigar tome for CC enthusiasts and B&Ms. It has some minor damages, but the quality and content are top notch with detailed explanations and hi-res photos that make it even more special (I like the fact that Collector's Edition has gold gilding which is rare in modern day books). Besides, El Habano Moderno Bookplates are also look so luxurious as Collector's Edition that make me want to put them in Collector's Edition and other cigar books 🙂.

I feel glad that I backed this wonderful cigar tome project with a huge confidene. Hopefully, it will be widely available in Korea too as cigar books like this are still unavailable in my country for many years due to its small cigar market size. Can't wait to see the second edition of El Habano Moderno soon 👍!

[JohnS]

On 9/5/2023 at 5:08 PM, Connoisseur Kim said:

At last, I received El Habano Moderno Collector's Edition today.

Looks great, @Connoisseur Kim. (I'm) Very happy for you!

[Connoisseur Kim]

1 hour ago, JohnS said:

Looks great, @Connoisseur Kim. (I'm) Very happy for you!

Much agreed @JohnS! El Habano Moderno Collector's Edition and Bookplates are heirloom quality that can be passed to generations to genertations as a family heritage. I'm impressed that it has quite lot of new info that aren't listed on CCW too such as difference between former machine made PCs like RyJ MF and premium handmade PCs like Monte 4 (single cap vs traditional flat head cap finish) 👍

I sent an email to Helios House Press to ask about replacement, but still it's so enjoyable to read such a fine piece of cigar book like this (already read Chapter 1 and time flew really fast while reading it) 🙂

[Stevieboy]

Has anyone who received a damaged book had any luck with getting a replacement? I wrote to Helios over a week ago and initially I was impressed but the person who I was dealing with has not been responding to my emails.

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

[PhilB]

Got my Kickstarter edition a week or two ago here in Canada.

Holy crap, that's a lot of info. It'll take a long time to get through it all. What a gorgeous work you've created, @ATGroom. I'm honoured to have been able to help make it happen (I presume that's the whole point of a Kickstarter).