They’ve called him Sakakhan, Papasaka, and Sakasquatch; he’s known as the cigar guru for the craft cigar world; and the Nicaraguan’s call him el gringo gruñón (or the grumpy gringo); it’s the one and only Steve Saka, owner and founder of Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust.
Where terms such as ‘master blender’ are far too frivolously tossed around regarding what are more accurately brand runners, Saka is the real deal. He’s in Estelí on a constant basis, and he’s not content to simply use a given factory’s standard materials. Instead, Saka’s hatching grandiose schemes such as mimicking Japanese melon-growing techniques to produce super tobaccos in Mexico or revolutionizing the way tobacco scraps are repurposed into Cuban sandwich blends of a higher caliber.
But Steve was on a whole new level in 2023, being near-impossible to miss (no, that’s not a joke about his stature…) within the world of premium cigars. From his <snicker>-filled hot takes on social media to frequent doses of tobacco/business knowledge, it’s hard to find a more entertaining personality in the cigar scene (and trust us, there are plenty of characters to choose from). With a continuous barrage of podcast and in-person events throughout 2023, combined with a solid delivery in terms of the cigars themselves, we feel it safe to declare it the Year of the Saka.
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