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Spring 1997 Volume II Issue 2 |
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Spring 1997 Volume II Issue 2 |
Walk through the door at the Boquilla Cigar Company in Union City, New Jersey and the heady aroma of curing tobacco will tell you that you're in a cigar factory. The mingling-of tobaccos in their various stages of processing creates an unmistakable fragrance that is even more distinctive than that which emanates from a humidor.
The small factory sits just across the Hudson River from Manhattan and a short distance from the New Jersey Turnpike. It is owned by Cuban-immigrant Jose Suarez, 64, and his stepson Bob Ramos, 33. Suarez will be the slight, gray-haired fellow wearing a Yankees baseball cap who is meticulously rolling Havana brand cigars at a bench at the back of the room.
Signs bearing the words "Hand-Made Cigars" on the converging sides of the unassuming building at the intersection of 21st Street and Summit Avenue are the only exterior evidence that cigars are being made within. Yet, for 15 years, Boquilla has provided inexpensive cigars to neighborhood smokers, most of whom are Hispanic. With the cigar boom in progress, Boquilla Cigar Co. and its premium Havana brand, under Ramos' business guidance, is expanding throughout the New York metropolitan area.
"I gave one of my father's Havana cigars to my boss one day," says Ramos. "He came back to me and said it was the best cigar he'd ever smoked. People tell me the Havana cigar we make shouldn't be in a little store, that it should be something bigger. I thought that if the cigar is that good, something had to be done to expand the factory. That's why I'm working with him. He's happy that I'm involved. He didn't think he'd have anyone to pass it on to."
If you buy from the retail counter, it's likely that Suarez will let you choose the cigars you want and then he will pack them carefully in a box made by a local carpenter. The box, however, will cost $7 beyond the price of the cigars. The store is frequently busy, and not always tranquil. A few days before Christmas Suarez had an encounter with a man who identified himself as a journalist for a Colombian newspaper. In rapid Spanish they confronted each other across the countertop, each raising his voice to be heard over the other.
"He started asking my father political questions," Ramos says. "He kept asking what my father thinks about Fidel. What's he going to tell him - that Fidel threw him in the detention camp? That Castro has ruined Cuba? My father doesn't like to talk about that stuff ."
Later Suarez says, while Ramos interprets, "I was not involved in the Revolution. I did leave Cuba because of the political system. You can't prosper in a system like that." Suarez, who was booted out of Cuba in 1980 during the Mariel boat lift, has been around tobacco since before he was a teenager. His father owned a cigar store in Cuba, and at about age eight or nine. Suarez assumed the duty of sorting cigars and doing odd jobs. Suarez learned to roll cigars from his father's nephew while he hung around the cigar store.
"All my life I have been around tobacco. I grew up in it. At 13, 1 was a full-blown roller." Eventually his father opened a factory, Cuba Manila, in the city of Placita, and operated it with Suarez' older brother.
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