“Mule Kick.” Those are two words that came into play for Crowned Heads a little over a year ago that really started almost as a joke. If you haven’t heard the story, here it goes…

We were at the 2012 IPCPR show in Orlando, and Mike and I were visiting with Ernie (Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, Jr.) in his booth. We got onto the topic of working out and specific exercises, and Ernie proceeded to mention an exercise he personally did called a “mule kick.” That wasn’t the ‘joke’ part–but when you see one of the cigar world’s icons get down on the floor and actually perform a ‘mule kick,’ then you might get the sense of surreal humor we found in the moment.

After his ‘mule kick demo,’ I half-jokingly said to Ernie, “Hey–mule kick would be a good name for a Four Kicks shape extension.” When you get to know Ernie, you discover that sometimes thoughts and ideas are like mental-grenades with him in that you may say something–and then, like 10 minutes later–it goes BOOM and it actually hits him. So, some 10 minutes later, Ernie leans into me and quietly mentions something about a particular batch of Habano Ecuador leaf (the wrapper we use on Four Kicks) that we knew was too dark to utilize on the Four Kicks line. A true lightbulb moment, in that I knew exactly what the ‘read-between-the-lines’ message was intended to be. Longer story short: we tweaked the ligero portion of the filler on the original Four Kicks, utilized that darker wrapper leaf, and–voila–Four Kicks Mule Kick LE 2012 was born.

Mule Kick was always intended to simply be an exercise in utilizing wrapper that we’d already purchased that wouldn’t work for the line it was originally intended for–nothing more. Call it thrifty, call it smart…call it whatever. What we weren’t anticipating was the ‘buzz‘ that the cigar would soon create.

On September 18, 2012, Cigar Aficionado ran the following story online:

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatures/show/id/16708

The next day, our phone began to ring constantly with calls from inquiring retailers asking about “Mule Kick.” At that point, we didn’t even have a retail price established, nor had we informed the rest of the office of the project in the works. So, you can imagine the puzzled looks on the faces of those who were answering phone calls asking about a “mule kick.” We began a list of pre-orders, and by the end of the day all 500 10-count boxes were sold out before we even had a suggested retail price, and before we could even pick up the phone to make any out-bound calls to actually ‘sell’ the cigar to our retail customers.

This was good and bad. It was good in that we sold out 500 boxes so quickly, but bad in that we received calls from a whole lot of retailers complaining, “Why didn’t I know about this…why didn’t I have a chance to purchase Mule Kick…?” In fact, we received those calls for many months after we’d already shipped out Mule Kick. Today, I received an email from a consumer–still looking for Four Kicks Mule Kick LE 2012. I even heard a story that a 10-count box sold on ebay for some $400 (the suggested retail was $89.50).

Fast forward to the end of 2012, when we had the idea of doing an annual Crowned Heads Limited Edition. Headley Grange (our 2nd brand release) had just received the “Top 25 Cigars of 2012” award from Cigar Aficionado magazine. Since Headley was inspired by a drum beat (“When The Levee Breaks”–Led Zeppelin), it made perfect sense that the LE 2013 would be a ‘drumstick,‘ and the vitola that most resembled said drumstick was (obviously) a lancero. We’d been receiving numerous requests and suggestions for a lancero vitola, so it all made perfect sense. I began working with Ernie in February of 2013 on blending ‘Drumstick.‘ There were some tweaks that needed to be made to the Headley filler in order for the lancero to burn properly and have a complex and balanced flavor profile. We continued spinning the Headley ‘seco-viso-ligero‘ wheel, and in Spring 2013 we had the final blend. The combination of tobaccos that were used for ‘Drumstick’ produced a final yield of 15,000 cigars (1,500 10-count boxes).

This past August, while visiting the factory again, I was able to sample the final product (which began production on August 6). I’m not going to go into how ‘amazing‘ the cigar was, or that it tasted like leather and nuts in the first third, cinnamon and nutmeg in the second third, and burnt Hostess Ho-Ho’s in the final third; I’ll leave that up to everyone else out there who enjoys dissecting cigars. What I will say, however, is that we learned a lesson from ‘Drumstick’s’ predecessor, i.e., Mule Kick. We wanted ‘Drumstick’–or at least the opportunity to carry it–to be a ‘thank you’ to our best retail partners, rather than just taking phone calls and adding up incoming orders. Once we had artwork and pricing finalized, we then offered up Headley Grange Drumstick LE 2013 to our best customers who’ve supported us over the past 2 years–and then, we offered Cigar Aficionado the ‘exclusive’ details which lead to this story that ran on September 11:

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatures/show/id/17246

As of this past Monday afternoon, Headley Grange Drumstick LE 2013 is officially SOLD OUT. We would like to thank those 90-some-odd retail tobacconists who supported ‘Drumstick’–you can find the complete list of ‘Where to Buy’ here:

http://www.crownedheads.com/drumstick/

‘Drumstick’ will begin shipping in early October, and we will complete all shipments by the middle of November. I hope that you will not only enjoy the ‘fruits of our labor,‘ but also support the Brick & Mortar retail tobacconists (mentioned above) in seeking out Headley Grange Drumstick LE 2013.

We’ve already begun on new projects for 2014, and my iPhone ‘notes‘ may have a thing or two in there about 2015. Stay tuned…

Jon Huber
Crowned Heads