Mule Kick – Limited Edition

What do you do with a batch of wrapper that’s too dark for your regular line? Use it on a limited-edition cigar with an amped-up blend and a catchy new name.

A batch of too dark wrapper (and a spur-of-the-moment discussion) led to a darker, stronger limited-edition version of Four Kicks that will come to market in early November. It’s called the Mule Kick, and it has a little more punch than the original release.

Four Kicks, owned by Crowned Heads LLC and made by Ernesto Perez-Carrillo in Santiago, Dominican Republic, is a boutique brand made in small quantities and with a good amount of creativity. At the August cigar trade show, Jon Huber and Mike Conder of Crowned Heads were in a discussion with Perez-Carrillo when the talk turned to exercise, and the cigarmaker executed a creative move called a Mule Kick. Huber remarked that it would make a nice name for a cigar.

“It was very spur of the moment,” says Huber. Perez-Carrillo remarked that he had set aside some Ecuador-Habano wrapper because it was too dark for the standard Four Kicks—good cigarmakers strive not only to make cigars that taste the same, but look consistent from cigar to cigar—and the group got to thinking that they could use this darker wrapper leaf on a limited-run cigar. “We added some stronger ligero,” says Huber, had it rolled into a new shape (5 7/8 by 52) and the result is the Four Kicks Mule Kick Limited Edition 2012.

The cigars will come out in 10-count boxes, will have secondary bands reading “Limited Edition 2012” and will retail for about $8.95. They are expected to be out in early November.

“It’s a nice way to end 2012,” said Huber.