{"id":291115,"date":"2026-05-31T20:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/291115\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T20:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:32:09","slug":"west-tampa-tobacco-co-ships-chef-rick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/291115\/","title":{"rendered":"West Tampa Tobacco Co. Ships Chef Rick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chef Rick has entered the kitchen.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/West-Tampa-Tobacco-Co.-Chef-Rick-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"471990\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/halfwheel.com\/west-tampa-tobacco-co-ships-chef-rick\/471989\/west-tampa-tobacco-co-chef-rick-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/West-Tampa-Tobacco-Co.-Chef-Rick-2.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1138,165\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Sara Rodriguez&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"West Tampa Tobacco Co. Chef Rick 2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/West-Tampa-Tobacco-Co.-Chef-Rick-2.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-471990\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/West-Tampa-Tobacco-Co.-Chef-Rick-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1138\" height=\"165\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>West Tampa Tobacco Co. has announced its latest release, which is named after Rick Rodriguez. The new Chef Rick is a 6 x 52 toro that uses a habano 2000 wrapper from an undisclosed country over an Ecuadorian Sumatra-seed binder and fillers from the Condega, Estel\u00ed, Jalapa and Ometepe regions of Nicaragua. It is made at Tabacalera Pages de Nicaragua S.A.<\/p>\n<p>Each cigar has an MSRP of $12.99 and production is limited to 3,000 boxes of 50 cigars.<\/p>\n<p>This is the third release in the company\u2019s Cook Book Series, which has featured food-inspired cigars like <a href=\"https:\/\/halfwheel.com\/west-tampa-tobacco-co-slates-boliche-blvd-for-nov-27-release\/431734\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boliche Blvd.<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/halfwheel.com\/west-tampa-tobacco-co-devil-crab\/452371\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Devil Crab<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA great culinary chef requires technical mastery, immense passion and creativity\u201d said Rodriguez in a press release. \u201cI also wanted to take the opportunity to partner with a young up and coming factory, Tabacalera Pages de Nicaragua S.A., to close out this trilogy. Having the opportunity to work along side Raymond Pages Raffo allowed me to bring something new and unique to my fans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt=\"Avatar photo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/thumb_Charlie-Minato-96x96.jpg\"  class=\"avatar avatar-96 photo\" height=\"96\" width=\"96\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/halfwheel.com\/author\/charlie\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Charlie Minato<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com\/Rueda Media, LLC. Previously, I started TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors blogs of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry since 2010, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&amp;A. Beyond writing, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff from weighing cigars to coordinating the tech. Outside of work, I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chef Rick has entered the kitchen. West Tampa Tobacco Co. has announced its latest release, which is named&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[123051,87127,123052,135,137,136,123053,123054],"class_list":["post-291115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-chef-rick","tag-pca-2026","tag-tabacalera-pages-de-nicaragua-s-a","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-west-tampa-tobacco-co","tag-west-tampa-tobacco-co-cook-book-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}