I know who blends the miami obviosly. But who blends the other 5 vegas cigars such as the gold and the classic? My father in law loves the gold and I'm looking for an answer for him.
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I checked around via Google and only found that they are made in Honduras with Dominican and Honduran tobbaco. I can't find the manufacturer.

MCS
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Yea that's the same thing I came up with. Hmmmm
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I think Nestor Placencia is behind 5 Vegas. I'm not sure if he is responsible for all the blends though. I believe the Limitada was from La Aurora, at least the 2006 blend was.
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:-)

I think it's Nestor.
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So does he do the classic, gold, and A series? Or is Nestor just involved with the classic line?
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I believe he is involved in all of the above, including the cask strength. My info comes from a couple google searches and from a thread I remember on the cbid forums where it was discussed, so take it for what it is worth :-)
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I got some 5 vegas classic cigars in a sampler several months ago, and truthfully I was quite disappointed...they were nothing like the 5 vegas gold, which I thought was excellent
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I spoke to a customer service rep at CI about the 5 Vegas Gold ... he said that the original blender was Kiki Barber. He said the brand was bought 5 to 8 years ago and that, while the blend may have changed slightly over time (tobacco crops being dynamic things, not static) it hasn't actually ever been re-blended. That's his story anyway. :-)

He also said that CI holds that brand and any you see in B&Ms were purchased from CI then put on the shelves. Has anyone heard that before? I had never heard that before.

Just my two cents.

(Yes, I did call the customer service rep JUST for the purpose of answering this question. I'm a trivia nut and the question intrigued me, plus I'm a little OCD. *shrug* ) :-)

EDIT: :-) 800 posts! I'm catching up, icehog3! :-)
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I had the opposite experience. I enjoyed the Classic and thought the Gold was like smoking air.
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The Classic's definitley benefit from some nap time. I found some coronas at the bottom of the humi that were very good. They had been threre a llittle ove a year.

Gold's are my go to morning/first smoke of the day stick.

They aren;t complex by any means. But the entire line is good smoking for little money.
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You'll never make it.:-):-)
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I sit corrected, I think...the information I referenced with regard to the thread on CBid came from SteveR, another CI customer service rep. Maybe it isn't inconsisten - the guy you spoke to referred to the "original" blender after all. Also, check out http://www.cigar.com/newsletter/archive.asp?a=062007 for the article about visiting with Nestor Placencia, which references his making the 5 vegas gold.

Sometimes I think customer service reps make things up when they don't know the answer to a question...
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I wholeheartedly agree! :-)

I certainly can't vouch for the knowledge of the guy I talked to. :-) Just passing along his info. Besides, I've never heard that CI owned the 5 Vegas brand ... anyone know if that's true?
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I believe that to be true - but my sources are the same as referenced above with regard to the blending, so take it for what it's worth :-)
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:-)
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Whomever you talked to was slightly confused and mixing up cigars.

Kiki Berger / World Tobacco originally blended the Classic. Then World Tobacco went bellyup and CI picked up the brand about 8-10 years ago.

Nestor Plasencia now makes the 5 Vegas Classic in Nicaragua for CI.

Nestor Plasencia blended and manufactures the 5 Vegas Gold (SteveR almost got arrested in the Honduras airport taking back a bundle of samples from Nestor). The 5 Vegas Gold didn't come out until about 5 years ago.

Torano makes the 5 Vegas "A" in Honduras.

5 Vegas Miami is Pepin. Manufactured mostly in his Nicaraguan factory, and there is one that is made in Miami.

Limitada '05, '06, '07 & '08 were blended by Jose Blanco of La Aurora and manufactured by La Aurora in the DR.

The original Cask Strength was also Jose Blanco & La Aurora.

Limitada '09, Cask-II, and Relic were blended by Mauel Quesada of MATASA and manufactured by MATASA.

I can't recall offhand who did the 5 Vegas Shorts. I think it might have been Nestor.
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Now that's pretty informative. Thanks for digging up the info. :-)
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You must spread some reputation around before giving it to T.G again.:-)
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Gotcha covered. :-)
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