I’ve been quite busy running around at the IPCPR show, talking to people and collecting great information and education to present to you over the coming weeks and months. Some of the highlights have been a New Media party held by Drew Estate at the MGM Grand, which was a veritable who’s who of bloggers and journalists (and me!). Several traditional print media folks were there, including Frank Seltzer (an old friend who writes for Smoke 
Magazine, Cigar Weekly and many others, Thor Nielson (Cigar Press Magazine) and his crew, Stephen Boyajian (Cigar Network Magazine), Jerry and Brian from StogieReview.com, Charlie from TheCigarFeed.com, Brooks from SmokingStogie.com, Mario from CigarExplorer.com, Teresa and Tim from SmokingHotCigarChick.com, Mitch from About.com, Patrick from Examiner.com, William Cooper from Cigar-Coop.com, and I’m sure some others whom I’ll be embarrassed about omitting when they tell me I forgot to mention them! Steve Saka, Marvin Samel, Jonathan Drew and Scott Chester all were there as well as Johnny Brooke, who, along with Charlie, were instrumental in organizing the event. We all received and incredibly generous bag of smokes and had a great time schmoozing. This is another example of why I hold Drew Estate in such high regard and think of them as great friends. I also had the good fortune to meet and talk to Tom Navarro, who is the worlds biggest Drew Estate fan, a CigarCraig.com reader and a fellow Cigar Safarian. It was a wonderful night with a balcony overlooking New York, New York and Excalibur hotels with great friends new and old. Thank you to Drew Estate for hosting (even though getting all these people in one place at the same time would have given Seltzer a great opportunity to get rid of us en masse!)
Last night I had the good fortune to have attended the Cigar Journal annual awards, where at one point I was sitting between Mitchell Orchant of C-Gars Ltd. And Jose Blanco, talk about rubbing elbows with giants in teh industry! I’ll expand more on that after I’ve had a chance to go through the video and transcribe all the winners. After that I had been invited to attend General Cigar‘s party, which was held in the Tryst nightclub in the Wynne hotel. Everyone was hanging out on outside by a waterfall smoking and drinking. I again managed to sit with Frank Seltzer along with Victoria McKee, General Cigars PR Director and a great friend of CigarCraig.com, who I thank for her support, the invitation and for rolling out the red carpet once again in the trade show booth and really treating us blogger types well!
I’ve got some appointments this morning to talk to some more wonderful folks on my last day at the show. I fly home tonight after what has been a pretty long but productive and enjoyable week. I’m going to leave you with the first of many short videos I’ve been taking of exhibitors. Here’s Marc Aub, another great friend and supporter, telling us about the great products at Palio and Esencia!
Until the next time,
CigarCraig
