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Cigars - The History

Cigar History - The Origins

Cigars, or something similar, have been around for well over 1000 years. Most historians believe their origin to have been invented by the ancient Mayans, who wrapped tobacco in either palm or plantain leaves. In fact, an ancient Mayan pot from the 10th century depicts a Mayan man smoking one of these primitive cigars. Both pre-Columbian Americans and Native Americans apparently cultivated the plant and smoked it in pipes for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.

What is not known, is when, or who, actually discovered the tobacco plant and its ability to be used for smoking purposes. The name tobacco and its origin are still being debated. The word tobacco was used among pre-Columbian natives of the West Indies. Those who took it back with them called it tobacco; the Mayan verb "sikar" meaning "to smoke" later became the Spanish noun cigarro.

Cigar History - 1400 to 1700

So now, flash forward to the 1400’s and it is generally agreed that Christopher Columbus and his men were the first Westerners to encounter tobacco in recorded history on October 12, 1492, in the gulf of San Salvador in the Bahamas. Three of Columbus's crewmen during his 1492 journey, Rodrigo de Jerez, Hector Fuentes and Luis de Torres, are said to have encountered tobacco for the first time on the island of Hispaniola, in what is present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, when natives presented them with dry leaves that spread a peculiar fragrance

Tobacco was widely diffused among all of the islands of the Caribbean and was therefore also encountered in Cuba where Columbus and his men had settled. His sailors reported that the Taínos on the island of Cuba smoked a primitive form of cigar, with twisted, dried tobacco leaves rolled in other leaves such as palm or plantain.

He and his crew saw the natives there growing the tobacco and soon realized that it would become a valuable commodity. They were correct, since upon their return and introduction, smoking caught on and became quite popular in Spain and Portugal.

Over the centuries cigars spread further as many sailors and missionaries were smoking cigars on voyages to many other countries and explorations including Italy and other European nations of course. It was actually the Portuguese who did most to convert the rest of the world. Portugal was the first to cultivate the tobacco plant outside of the Americas, its introduction having occurred around 1512. By 1558, snuff was on sale in the markets of Lisbon.

Also in the mid-1500’s, Spanish manufacturers had developed the art of wrapping dried tobacco in specialized papers instead of leaves, thus making smoking a refined art. While most European cigars were originally manufactured in Spain, it was not long before the Spanish found that Cuba was the ideal place to grow tobacco. This country's climate is in fact ideal for growing this plant, which explains why Cuban cigars have become famous the world over.

Later, tobacco use spread to Italy and, after Sir Walter Raleigh's voyages to the Americas, to Britain. Smoking became familiar throughout Europe—in pipes in Britain—by the mid-16th century. In 1542, tobacco started to be grown commercially in North America, when the Spaniards established the first cigar factory on the island of Cuba. Around 1592, the Spanish galleon San Clemente brought 50 kilograms (110 lb.) of tobacco seed to the Philippines over the Acapulco-Manila trade route. It was distributed among Roman Catholic missionaries, who found excellent climates and soils for growing high-quality tobacco there.

But most Europeans didn't get their first taste of tobacco until the mid-16th century, when adventurers and diplomats like France's Jean Nicot - the French ambassador to Portugal, made cigar smoking popular back in his home country; in fact, the word nicotine is derived from this man's name. He experimented with crushed tobacco leaves used as a snuff for curing migraine headaches. In 1560, Nicot gave a sample of this home remedy to Catherine de Medici who also suffered from chronic migraines. It was effective in relieving her headaches and the popularity of tobacco snuff grew among the aristocracy. In fact, people became so enthusiastic about its powers that tobacco became known as "Herba Medicea" or "Herba Catherinea".

Speaking of Cuba, the largest of the islands Columbus would claim for Spain, he named it “Isla Juana” in honor of the ruler of Catile. Later it would be known as Fernandina. But it was native Taino Indians that called it Colba, which Spanish tongues twisted into "Cuba." They also had a name for the curious dried leaves they set on fire in order to inhale the smoke - cojoba or cohiba.

In the late 1500’s the English developed a liking for tobacco, but found it very expensive to import it from their enemy, Spain. Ultimately, the cost of the "Spanish" tobacco drove the English into an effort to produce an acceptable English tobacco – and they found it in the new and thriving colony of Virginia. The first successful commercial crop was cultivated in Virginia in 1612 by Englishman John Rolfe. Within seven years, it was the colony's largest export.

Cigar History - 1800's

Over the next two centuries, the growth of tobacco as a cash crop fueled the demand in North America for slave labor for both cotton and tobacco production. By 1880, the only states in the Union lacking a cigar factory where Montana and Idaho.

At the same time, because Spain tried to completely dominate and monopolize the cigar industry, many cigar manufacturers moved to Florida and the Philippines, which was at the time a Spanish colony. Still, the chief source of cigars smoked in the United States in the nineteenth century was the West Indies, especially Cuba.

The cigar had obtained a great deal of popularity in the USA and the period involving the Civil War could easily be called the Golden Age of the Cigar in The United States. In 1869, Spanish cigar manufacturer Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his Principe de Gales (Prince of Wales) operations from the important cigar manufacturing center of Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida to escape the turmoil of the Ten Years' War. Other manufacturers followed, and Key West became another important cigar manufacturing center. In 1885, Ybor moved again, buying land near the then-small city of Tampa, Florida and building the largest cigar factory in the world at the time in the new company town of Ybor City. Friendly rival and Flor de Sánchez y Haya owner Ignacio Haya built his own factory nearby in the same year, and many other cigar manufacturers soon followed to Tampa, especially after an 1886 fire that gutted much of Key West.

Cigar History - 1900's to Present Day

As the population of New York exploded, so did cigar factories in New York, where cigars were made by rollers working in their own homes. It was reported that as of 1883, cigars were being manufactured in 130 apartment houses in New York, employing 2000 families and 8000 individuals. By 1905, there were 80,000 cigar-making operations in the United States, most of them small, family-operated shops where cigars were rolled and sold immediately.

So, great was the demand for tobacco in all its forms that in 1913 domestic output totaled 267,000 tons. In 1920 the number of cigars sold had reached 7 billion. One writer said "The weight of the tobacco consumed in the U.S. in a year is equal to the weight of the entire and combined populations of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, and the District of Columbia." Everyone who wished to smoke, no matter his financial means, could find a cigar of agreeable flavor at a reasonable price.

Local cigar manufacturing peaked in 1929, when workers in Ybor City and West Tampa rolled over 500,000,000 "clear Havana" cigars, earning the town the nickname "Cigar Capital of the World". 

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Cuban-made cigar smoking enjoyed consistent support until the downfall of Cuban cigars, when Fidel Castro emerged in Cuba in 1959 and toppled the hated government of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Suddenly, an island that since Columbus's arrival was called "Pearl of the Antilles" was now denounced a dreaded "Red toehold in the Western Hemisphere" and "a Communist threat ninety miles from Miami".

In the 1960’s, after the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Castro strengthened his ties with the Soviets. On 7 February 1962, United States President John F. Kennedy imposed a trade embargo on Cuba to sanction Fidel Castro's communist government and with the stroke of his pen, an embargo on all imports of Cuban cigars that would remain in effect for decades.

The embargo prohibited U.S. residents from legally purchasing Cuban cigars and American cigar manufacturers from importing Cuban tobacco. As a result, Cuba was deprived of its major customer for tobacco, and American cigar manufacturers either had to find an alternative source of tobacco or go out of business.

Upon the expropriation of private property in Cuba, many former Cuban cigar manufacturers moved to other countries (primarily the Dominican Republic) to continue production. The Dominican Republic's production of tobacco grew significantly. After reallocation, most Cuban manufacturers continued to use their known company name, seed, and harvesting technique while Cubatabaco, Cuba's state tobacco monopoly after the Revolution, independently continued production of cigars using the former private company names. As a result, cigar name brands like Romeo y Julieta, La Gloria Cubana, Montecristo, and H. Upmann among others, exist in both Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

The embargo on importation of Havana cigars led directly to an exodus of Cuban cigar makers and the growth of competition in premium cigar manufacturing not only in the Dominican Republic, but also Honduras, Nicaragua  and other Latin American countries.

The loosening of the embargo in January 2015 included a provision that allowed the importation into the U.S. of up to $100 worth of alcohol or tobacco per traveler, allowing legal importation for the first time since the ban. In October 2016, the Obama administration lifted restrictions on the number of cigars that an American can bring back to the U.S. for personal use without having to pay customs taxes.

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So now that you know the history of cigars, lets talk about how they are made.

Cigars - Manufacture & Composition