When a cigar brand possesses within its arsenal a Master Blender, backed with statistics of Cuban emigration, a family heritage of more than a century in the tobacco industry, and over forty years experience in... Read More...
When the English settlers initially meandered their way down the Eastern Seaboard to the area of the country now known as Virginia, they discovered the type of tobacco grown and smoked by the natives. This stra... Read More...
Many of today’s owners of “boutique” brands travelled a long and winding road on their journey toward the cigar business. And in the case of Oscar Valladares, that statement is not metaphorical. Oscar’s initial... Read More...
While the majority of cigar manufactures were literally born into the business, a few contemporary tobacco men were not—Litto Gomez of La Flor Dominicana, Johathan Drew of Drew Estates, Robert Caldwell of Caldw... Read More...
Many memorable moments in one’s life are the result of happenstance. On a sunny day in southern Marin, a decade or so ago, as the spinnakers on the sailboats cruising the San Francisco Bay ballooned with the br... Read More...
On October 10, 2016, Major League Baseball player David Américo Ortiz Arias suited up for the final time. The game was against the Cleveland Indians, marking the final matchup in what would become a clean sweep... Read More...
Two decades ago, after a successful career in the video rental business, Tony Serino decided to enter the tobacco industry. His new enterprise, APS Distributors, initially specialized in the buying, importation... Read More...
Herrera Estelí was introduced in 2012 at the IPCPR show, later seeing an extremely limited number of cigars released at exclusive events, before finally making its official, public debut in early 2013. The ciga... Read More...
Ask near-any craft cigar junkie what their favorite brand is and you'll be told, "Tatuaje" 7 out of 10 times—yes, those are made up numbers and yes we're sticking to them! Brand owner Pete Johnson is largely cr... Read More...
Near the middle of September 2013, as the South Florida sunlight lapped across the rolling swells of the Atlantic Ocean, Robert Caldwell decided, once again, to reenter the premium cigar business. Caldwell, a f... Read More...
It's a tale as old as time—man ventures into the darkness of space in search of exotic leaf—man exploits said leaf in the form of premium cigar—man discovers he's not alone and pays the consequences for his neg... Read More...
Recently, I was invited to attend a Master Class conducted by Hendrik “Henke” Kelner of Davidoff of Geneva. Kelner, a courtly gentleman who speaks English with a robust Spanish accent, has been the tobacco prod... Read More...