"These are all Cuban people, all Grade 7 rollers, the very best," Perdomo says, gesturing out over the floor where an intent crew sits at a series of wooden rolling stands, working in a silence thick with concentration and a heady aroma of cured tobacco that seems to have wafted in directly from Havana itself. Here, as in Esteli, the rollers work entirely by hand, using no Levermans; - those outsized cigar-making versions of the Zig-Zag-like rolling machines.

Nor is there any assembly line-styled division of labor. Each roller hand bunches, binds, wraps, and trims his or her own cigars (there are currently four female rollers employed in Miami.) When I suggest that adding a lector at the front of the room to read aloud the Spanish newspaper, or perhaps a bit of Don Quixote, would complete the picture of a Cuban cigar factory out of time, Perdomo laughs.

"If they told me they wanted it, I'd do it," he says. "When a bunch of other operators jumped in locally and started offering unheard-of wages to lure workers away, these people stayed with me. I feel like I owe them the same loyalty."

Michael Argenti agrees, estimating that as many as 50 competing manufacturers may have come and gone in Miami over the last half-dozen years, most of them trying to capitalize on the cigar boom. "They'd offer rollers a thousand dollars a week and then turn around and try to sell mediocre cigars for $12 to $15," he said. "Before long they'd be out of business. That reflected poorly on everybody down here.

"And those are just the licensed ones that the ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) knows about," Perdomo chimes in. "There are still a bunch of people operating out of their garages."

The reasons for the demise of so many competitors are diverse, with the cost of domestic labor, the lack of adequate capitalization, inexperience, indifference to quality, and sheer greed prominent among them. But Nick's seems to have avoided the pitfalls.

"We're little guys up against some very, very big guys," Perdom admits. "I might be able to spend $300,000 on marketing, where one o the big three conglomerates will spend upwards of $30 million. The only way I know to survive under those conditions is to make a better cigar.

Apparently, he is succeeding. There may be as many as 1,600 registered brands of cigars being produced and distributed today, and number of those have the muscle Perdomo refers to behind them. Still in recent sales rankings by an industry publication, Nick's brand La Tradicion Cabinet Series came in at No. 33 and the milder Tobaccos San Jose at No. 44.

Results of a blind taste-testing conducted by this publication gave the Miami-made La Tradicion Torpedo Rosado a 91, the highest SUCH rating ever awarded a domestic cigar. In another taste-testing published in mid-summer, the DOS Rio Pyramid, produced in Perdomo' Nicaraguan factory, also scored a 91, ahead of such competitors a Pardon and Punch. Nor does it cost consumers an arm and a leg to savor such quality: the La Tradicion Torpedo retails for less than $7 a stick, the Dos Rios Pyramid for under $5. In fact, Perdomo has held the line o prices for more than three years in these heady cigar times, even though wages and materials have steadily increased over the same period including a rise in the average price of Connecticut wrapper leaf from $10 to $65 a pound.

0ther retailers have taken notice of Perdomo's accomplishments, a fact borne out by the increasing private-label production the company has become involved in. La Vieja Habana, which Perdomo ships to Jonathan Drew, was recently named "Cigar of the Week" by an industry publication. In 1998, the company will ship about 1,000,000 cigars to Tampa-based giant Thompson Cigar under the tag of Quo Vadis, and others. Perdomo has also created private label lines for the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami, the Boca Raton Hotel and Golf Resort, and Grand Traverse Resort in Michigan.

Most of Perdomo's cigars are offered under three in-house brands: the flagship La Tradicion Cabinet Series, accounting for 50 percent of company sales; a milder line called Tobaccos San Jose (named after the birthplace of Nick Sr.); and the ultra-robust Dos Rios line, lauded by legendary tobacco master Angel Oliva as among his 10 favorite cigars. The La Tradicion Series is constructed of Cuban-seed fillers grown in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua, with an Ecuadorian binder and wrappers from Ecuador (Rosado, Maduro) or Connecticut (Natural). Tobaccos San Jose, the milder line, uses a filler blend of tobaccos from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Brazil, with binders from the D.R. and wrappers from Connecticut. The bold Dos Rios line has primarily Nicaraguan filler with some Dominican Republic tobacco used as well; the binder is Nicaraguan, the wrappers Ecuadorian.

The red rosado wrappers, which Perdomo reports some consumers find reminiscent of cigars produced in Cuba decades ago, are harvested from very near the tops of tobacco plants grown in Ecuador. These are leaves which get more sun and which contain a relatively high content of sugar and starch, thus imparting an oily sheen to he surface of the cigar and a flavorful, even born to the smoking experience. The wrapper has proven extremely popular, especially in Europe. The company has stockpiled enough of the trademark wrapper for 27 months of production, and has entered into cooperative programs with Ecuadorian tobacco farmers to ensure a steady supply in the years to come.

It's the sort of strategy Perdomo finds necessary to stay competitive in an ever-more demanding business. "Quality and consistency, that's what an increasingly sophisticated smoking public insists upon in a top brand, and that's what we can offer," he says. "No way the guy who's producing 80,000,000 cigars a year can keep an eye on his product the way I do, making a tenth of those numbers. And the co-op programs we've developed with growers in Nicaragua and Ecuador guarantee a consistent product as well." We're back in the company offices b%, now, and Perdomo breaks off, gesturing across the big open room to the desk where his brother-in-law sits.

"What it comes down to, cigars are a lifestyle choice," Perdomo says. "Now, Mike over there smokes cigarettes. He has to have them." Argenti shrugs affably, wondering where this is going.

"A cigar smoker enjoys a cigar but he doesn't have to have one - it's a choice," Perdomo continues. "It's a lot like drinking wine, where you develop your tastes and you're simply not satisfied with something that doesn't measure up anymore. Americans have come to appreciate good things. They'll pay for a good product, but they expect to receive that good product in turn. That's where the cigar business is today and that's what we respond to."

Asked about where they see the company heading in the future, both Argenti and Perdomo wax enthusiastic. "We're not looking to get huge," Perdomo says, "but we will continue to grow." Right now, the company sells about 80% of its cigars to domestic retailers. Another 10% is accounted for by private label sales, with the remainder attributable to foreign sales, and that's where Argenti sees the greatest potential for growth. He dives into files and hands over a copy of a letter from the chief buyer for Villiger, distributors of some 30,000,000 long filler cigars to the European market, mostly Cuban. The letter thanks Perdomo for the sampling of the company's cigars and ends by describing them as "the best made cigars I have ever seen."

Argenti is waving the letter now. "After we sent Villiger our first shipment, the same buyer called to tell us he’d sent a couple of our boxes to one of his Cuban manufacturers, saying, 'Now this is how a cigar should be made and packaged”.

So the European market looms large on Perdomo's horizon, as do prospects for several new lines. There is a modestly priced series of Colorado-wrapped torpedos christened "The Cuban Bullet," (4 x 54, 5 x 54, 6 x 54) which will retail from $2 to $3. Then there is the aptly named "Immenso," a pair of gargantuan offerings at 5 x 70 and 6 x 70, suggested at $12 and $14, respectively. And finally, the previously mentioned extension of the La Tradicion Cabinet Series Line, the Perdomo Reserve. A glorious box-pressed, figurado line which recently distinguished itself in a blind vertical taste test by a leading cigar publication as the highest rated "new release" ever. And yes, a little something for the Holiday Season as well, a box-pressed Nicaraguan cigar with a rich Cameroon wrapper, a sample of which Miguel Erazo has just presented to Michael Argenti for his assessment. Erazo patiently waits as Argenti clips the offering and lights it up. After a few long draws and a moment to reflect, he beams his approval. Delighted, Erazo heads for the factory floor. "But don't get the wrong idea," Argenti is quick to caution. He uses the dark stick he's holding to gesture across the room. "What I think is one thing, but nothing leaves this factory without Nick's blessing."