It’s been anecdotally stated that there are over a thousand separate steps in making a cigar, as if each twist and turn of a path spanning several years can be precisely defined and quantified. Like so many other pursuits in the world, there are cigar makers who approach their craft with a desire for efficiency and simplicity - who don’t need to know or oversee every fussy detail - and those who bring a near-fanatical zeal, a desire to build something from the ground up and control every aspect of the process, each step of the way. As involved as cigar making is by nature, there are those who somehow manage to take an even longer, more difficult path in search of authenticity or to make a personal statement.

Henry “Kiki” Berger, a native Cuban with a family history in cigar making, only joined the world of cigar making himself relatively late in life - a newcomer by industry standards. Originally an investor in a troubled boom-era Nicaraguan operation, Kiki stepped in to personally set the business right, but along the way fell under tobacco’s spell and never left the cigar town of Estelí. He painstakingly built a farm on a fertile but boulder-strewn plot of land there, anticipating the rich tobaccos it would one day produce. To cure his leaf, he chose to create a tobacco barn the likes of which few outside of Cuba ever build: an imposing building with a traditional thatch roof. Standard metal roofs, he once explained, are too hot, and tobaccos inside won’t cure properly. To support its sheer size - the largest in Nicaragua - Kiki even resorted to an expensive metal infrastructure.

Sadly, this proud part of his dream recently burned to the ground in a blazing fire that employees and firefighters were unable to halt. Even worse, the barn contained his freshly harvested crop, which looked like one of the best yet from his young farm. Such tragedies are not entirely uncommon in the cigar world, unfortunately. Many famous cigar families have endured the unexpected onslaughts of political turmoil, natural disasters, and plain bad luck. Many of the most famous tobacco growers and cigar makers have lost crops, barns, factories, brands, and entire businesses to blights, floods, fires, dictators, and wars. Through it all, the tattered pieces are picked up and rebuilt, and passion prevails. -

E.H., M.B.