 
New Dawnin Nicaragua SMOKE visits the handful of surviving Nicaraguan cigar makers and explores their solid dedication to tradition. by Mike Jessee
I don’t care what anyone says - driving at dusk from Managua, Nicaragua, to the northern cigar-producing town of Esteli is nothing to be taken lightly. The Pan American Highway, which connects the two cities as it snakes along the western edge of Central America, is a pock-marked road with no lighting and plenty of hazards. Cars and trucks leap-frog past one another in a kamikaze-tinged competition, as those on a mission dart past those who are in no particular hurry. Avoiding stray livestock and roadside salesmen (selling mainly food - fruits, vegetables, fish, iguana meat - and pets - large, colorful parrots and monkeys) presents another challenge. And then there is the oncoming traffic, which is just as likely to be in the right lane as the left. Finally, the terrain itself has to be overcome, since Esteli rests on a plateau surrounded by volcanic mountains and river valleys. Some would call the experience harrowing; others might call it exhilarating. No one in his right mind would say it was boring.
The same can be said about the Nicaraguan cigar industry. Harrowing to some, exhilarating for others, and boring for no one, the Nicaraguan cigar business has come through the post-boom shake-out, leaving a handful of solid manufacturers - traditional long-held family operations and a couple of newborn boutique brands that have proven their mettle in a short time - in a good position to continue the tradition of producing high-quality Nicaraguan cigars.
Some of these manufacturers, like Cubanica Cigars, S.A. (Padron), Tobacos de Oriente de Nicaragua, S.A. (Plasencia), Nicaraguan American Tobacco, S.A. (NATSA), and Nica Habanos (Toraño), have seen good and bad over the last decade. Others, such as Tabacalera Perdomo (formerly Nick’s Cigars) and Esteli Cigar (Cupido) were faced with trying to get their business and factories up and running amidst the turmoil of the volatile boom-time market.
“The war lasted so long,” commented one factory owner, “that people just got used to it. But now that it’s over, they are just focused on trying to work together and move ahead. No one has the energy to continue fighting. They’re just trying to make a decent living.”
However, Hurricane Mitch handed Nicaraguans another blow in 1998. Many highways’ bridges were simply washed away, costing the poverty-stricken country millions of dollars in rebuilding costs - millions that weren’t available. Not too far south of Esteli, one town of 25,000 was completely wiped off the map. All that remains is a dusty basin where houses and farms used to be.
Nonetheless, the Nicaraguans persevere. And so does their cigar industry.
International relief efforts have replaced the missing roads and bridges. Most of the larger cigar companies also helped their workers by either donating time or building materials or both.
“These people are very optimistic, very resilient,” says Henry “Don Kiki” Berger, president of Esteli Cigar, who helped coordinate the army’s emergency relief program. “They have survived a lot, and they have helped [the cigar manufacturers] a lot also. So we really owe it to them to give something back.”
The Padron family recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a group of new homes built for workers whose houses were destroyed.
“We were able to raise $135,000 in aid for Esteli Relief, in conjunction with the Catholic Church with the help of some of our U.S. retailers,” says Jorge Padron of Padron’s Cubanica S.A. factory. “That money has gone to building homes for dozens of our workers’ families.”
With the hard times seemingly behind them and recovery nearly complete, manufacturers are once again fully focused on the future and developing unique, top-notch Nicaraguan cigars.
Cubanica S.A.
Along with his sons Jorge and Orlando Jr., Don Orlando is overseeing an operation that has slowly but very consistently grown into one of the top cigar companies in the world.
“We’ll end up producing more than four million cigars this year,” says Jorge, who splits time between Miami and Esteli. “About half a million will be for the 1964 Anniversary Series,” he says. The rest will support the company’s lone brand - Padron.
“If we wanted them to,” says Don Orlando, “we could have them rolling 500 cigars a day; but then quality suffers.”
The latest Padron offering, the Torpedo, is in high demand, and the most skilled rollers are busy meeting that demand. And Jorge says the company is developing a Belicoso-sized cigar, though its intended debut has been postponed.
That doesn’t bother the Padrons, however. Don Orlando’s patient cigar philosophy and his sense of timing have raised the company to where it is today - at the top of the industry.
Latin Nicaragua The factory, a medium-sized facility employing 60 to 80 full-time rollers and bunchers, was running close to maximum production when we visited. Looks can be deceiving, when you realize these employees can turn out anywhere between 10 and 15 thousand cigars a week. The factory manager, Fidel Oliva, who also oversees Toraño’s Honduran facility, is one of Esteli’s old guard of tobacco men.
“It’s funny,” says Charlie Toraño, son of Carlos and vice president of Toraño Cigars, “now that the boom is over, Esteli has basically the same group of guys making cigars that were there before it all began.”
Aside from making Toraño Cigars, the company produces several well-known private labels and boutique brands. Cano A. Ozgener first approached Carlos Toraño about producing his C.A.O. Gold line in the mid-’90s. Latin Nicaragua also makes the Casa de Nicaragua brand for the European cigar company Villiger.
“We’re very proud to make the C.A.O. Gold line,” says Charlie Toraño. “The reputation of that cigar has grown steadily over the past couple of years, and we’re very happy to be involved with C.A.O.”
Current production estimates for the Nicaraguan Selection see the factory rolling around 300,000 cigars this year. While the company will be promoting the Dominican Carlos Toraño Signature Collection, a Dominican cigar with a chocolatey Brazilian wrapper, and the Reserva Selecta this year, it will also continue showcasing the Nicaraguan line as one of the top cigars made in Nicaragua.
Nicaragua American Tobacco, S.A.
Among the cigars being produced at NATSA are Rosa Cuba, Villar Y Villar, José Martí, and La Trinidad, among others. Currently, the facility is running at full capacity to meet the demands of the largest distributor in the U.S.
But the Bermejos have brought more than just steady work and a large factory to Esteli. A recent study by a Managuan newspaper singled out NATSA as an exemplar of the compassionate employer, as the company provides workers with benefits like medical, dental, and nursery care, while many others don’t.
With a grateful well-trained workforce, a forward-looking company president, and continued demand for its cigars, NATSA shows no signs of slowing down in the future.
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While the boom was good for most, meaning, of course, high demand and increased revenue, it also meant a shortage of quality tobacco and cigars, and in some cases, even a dearth of experienced rollers. There were countless obstacles outside the industry as well. Nicaragua’s long civil war ended on the decade’s doorstep in 1990. Warring tensions are always slow to subside, and the toll on the country’s people and infrastructure, especially in the Sandinista-dominated, tobacco-rich Jalapa Valley region that surrounds Esteli, was incredible. Esteli itself has numerous bullet-scarred buildings letting outsiders know exactly what living through the town’s recent past was like. Due to wartime casualties, women vastly outnumber men in Nicaragua, and they dominate the labor force. Despite all of this, the town has a tangible confidence that can be felt as surely as the heat of the sun and the dust underfoot. People here are optimistic about the future.
Our visit to the factory revealed full-steam-ahead production, with nearly 400 workers producing Don Orlando’s prized cigars. Although Padron cigars are back-ordered, Don Orlando refuses to rush the process to try to catch up with demand. The tobacco is aged until it meets the senior Padron’s exacting standards, and rollers are limited to making no more than 350 cigars a day.
The 70-year-old Don Juan (as he was known) was a true cigar industry pioneer. Born in the heart of Cuba’s Pinar del Rio tobacco region, he opened his first cigar factory in Cuba at age 18. After Castro’s revolution, Don Juan fled Cuba, taking his passion and knowledge of cigars wherever he went. He eventually went on to work in some capacity of the cigar business in every producing country in Central America. His innovations were many, including planting the first-ever Cuban-seed tobacco outside of Cuba (Bermejo had smuggled eight ounces of Cuban tobacco seed off the island in 1961). He will be greatly missed, not just by friends and family, but by numerous cigar-industry professionals, who knew Don Juan as a mentor and trusted advisor.
Nevertheless, in the tradition of the multi-generational cigar industry, the torch at NATSA, which Don Juan founded in 1995, has been passed on to Don Juan’s son, Juan “Triki” Bermejo, Jr. Under Triki’s supervision, the factory, which is the primary producer of Nicaraguan cigars for Lew Rothman’s Cigars by Santa Clara, has become the largest (in terms of production) in Nicaragua. Triki has also updated the company’s facilities by bringing in high-tech, temperature-controlled aging units and cryogenic coolers to eliminate infestation.