I bought special releases from Tatuaje for a few years. I pretty quickly determined that I liked the regular brown and red labels a hell of a lot more. In fact, I thought that those special releases I tried were half as good, at best. My taste, of course.
I don't know what is in the Pete's thoughts, but I often wonder if it is just all about striking the iron while it is hot. I sort of can't blame a guy for trying to make money, but he talks about all the crap in the industry, and then seems get embroiled in crap that pisses us off; like horrible packaging that makes the cigars taste like they were stored in a paint locker. That said, I'm sure he doesn't condone it, and has to bite his tongue, A LOT. Pepin dumping his ass would really be catastrophic.
As we used to say in Brooklyn, "fuck dat shit"
Pepin is not rolling as good a cigar as he used to. His original blends and branded cigars, for Padilla, Black Cat, etc. were some of the very best cigars I have ever smoked. All this other crap is just not worth it to me anymore. That said, since he went vertical, I buy a sampling every year to see if he is getting back to his original quality of flavor. Not even close, yet, but definitely better than when he hooked up with Ashton, got into it with Fernandez, and EVERYTHING he was rolling went to pure shit in flavor and construction. We'll see, but it will be a long time before I can buy anything made by Pepin with a caution to the wind attitude.