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Tobacco Harvest in Pinar del Rio in Final Stage 

The harvest of tobacco leaves in Pinar del Rio has entered its last stage, with great quality, thanks to the efforts made by the producers and the favourable weather.

These results are being achieved despite the battering suffered by the territory from two hurricanes that seriously damaged the infrastructure of this industry, but has recovered most of its original capacity.

Of the over 7,000 tobacco-curing sheds that were affected, some 5,300 are completely restored, while 865 are in the roofing stage, and some 500 others are in different stages of repair.

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• The dark side of Cuban cigars  

"I'm always scared," said Pedro as he deftly twisted large tobacco leaves to make fake famous name Havana cigars in a clandestine workshop in the Cuban capital.

If caught in his illegal workshop, known as a "chinchal," Pedro could face a prison term.

"It's not a business, but a necessity to survive," Pedro said in the dim light of the dilapidated building.

With long-suffering Cuba hard hit by the economic crisis and pounded by two hurricanes last year, the government has stepped up its fight against illegal trade, including in cigars.

Sales in the famous smokes fell 3% last year, according to a report released at a Havana trade show last month.

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Indian Tractors, Cuban Cigars 

Habanos S.A. (a joint venture of the Cuban government and Altadis) plans to hold the Montecristo Cup Charity Pro-Am golf championship in Varadero in May, Spanish news agency EFE reports. The goal is to boost wealthy tourism to Cuba while providing a venue for cigar-smoking golfers frustrated with the prohibitions in Europe.

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COYOTE: Visiting the cigar factory 

Today I'm visiting El Laguito, the Cohiba factory where only Castro's own cigars and his gifts for diplomats and heads of state were once made. The factory is in a lovely pale-yellow mansion, formerly owned by a sugar magnate, has marble floors, stained glass windows, high ceilings and perfectly cared for grounds. . . .

Abuzz with coffee and anticipation, I set off to review the manufacture of Cohibas. It takes approximately 150 steps from the first planting of the seed until the final sealing of a box of finished cigars. . . .

Miguel takes one from the box and guides me through the proper steps to light it:

First moisten the tip in your mouth. . . .

It is finally ready and I inhale the mildest, sweetest, most fragrant smoke I think I have ever tasted. I smoked 25-year-old Churchill's in London, Partagas and Upmanns older than my children, and though I am far from a connoisseur, this is special. . . .

Looking at my interlocutor seriously, I say gravely, "Imagine placing your lips against those of an angel and inhaling her breath." . . .

The smokers of cigars will tell you that cigars are healthier than cigarette tobacco and I believe it. There are no chemicals or sprays on the leaves, and I read that an American cigarette has over 400 chemical additives

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Cuba tobacco crop looks good after stormy 2008 

The world's premier tobacco region in western Cuba has recovered from two powerful hurricanes in 2008 and is about to produce one of the best crops in years, growers said on Tuesday.

Lush green fields of the leafy plant stood ready for harvest in the island's Vuelta Abajo region of Pinar del Rio province, a sacred place for cigar smokers around the globe.

Curing barns were filled to the roof with leaves that have already been picked.

"The tobacco has a lot of oil, and it's good size. The more oil you have, the more flavor," said planter Leonardo Moreno.

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COYOTE: The lure of a fine Cuban cigar 

In Havana, as celebrity bait at an event called the International Festival of Tobacco. Despite the fact that I no longer smoke cigars, they once played a marked role in my life, and that's enough of a thread to take advantage of the opportunity to see Havana. . . .

It was Jack who initiated my father into the pleasures and expenses of Cuban cigars. When he died, he left my father the humidor (about the size of a large washing machine) and many of his finest cigars. When my father died, I inherited the humidor, which I still own. When I was about 12, my father caught me smoking a Pall Mall behind the house, and in his inimitable way, suggested that if I was going to smoke, I damn well ought to smoke "the best," and gave me a small Panatela of some kind, which, despite making me green and ill, I quite liked.

When trouble began between Castro and the United States, my father (like President Kennedy) determined that it might crimp his enjoyment of Cuban cigars, so he began buying about 100 boxes a week and storing them in the vault at Dunhill. . . .

Ten years later, I had the money to buy my own cigars, and my work in the movies afforded me frequent travel abroad. Jack's cigar broker, then my father's, was the venerable firm of James Fox on London's elegant St. James Street. For a number of years, before America became obsessed and vicious about destroying the Cuban economy, they would remove the labels and ship me my Bolivars and Monte Cristos in Jamaican boxes . . .

Alas, other vices from my past caught up with me, and I was forced to stop smoking and drinking, and gave away my last stash of cigars to friends. However, my familiarity with the subject, my revolutionary and Socialist sentiments, and my desire to see Cuba first hand, led me to accept this all-expenses-paid plus car-and-driver and rooms in the famous old Nacional Hotel of Al Capone and Meyer Lansky fame. I would, if required, cut ribbons and be the George Hamilton of Havana. So, I'm off to look around and see what can be learned. Stay tuned.

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Cuban cigar sales dip 3 pct in 2008 amid downturn - BostonHerald.com 

Cuba's cigar industry survived a trio of hurricanes but saw sales slip 3 percent to $390 million last year as the world economic crisis reduced demand for luxury goods, the island's tobacco monopoly said today.

Habanos SA vice president Manuel Garcia said an 11 percent drop in international travelers slowed cigar sales at duty free shops, which account for a quarter of its business, while stricter smoking laws in Germany, France, the U.K. and United Arab Emirates also decreased demand.

Some 25 percent of the 400 million cigars sold worldwide last year were Cuban, with Spain, France, Germany and then Cuba itself buying the most, said Javier Terres, a vice president for development at Habanos. Excluding the U.S., which consumes about 250 million cigars a year, Cubans hold 70 percent of the global cigar market, he added.

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• Cuban cigar sales drop amid global crisis 

Sales of Cuban cigars, considered the finest in the world, dropped 3 percent to $390 million in 2008 as the world financial crisis and the spread of anti-smoking laws cut demand, officials said on Monday.

The falling sales reflected a decline in the market for luxury products in general as global economic worries mounted, said Manuel Garcia, vice president of Habanos S.A., the worldwide distributor of Cuban cigars.

Speaking at a press conference kicking off Cuba's annual cigar festival, he said 2009 was likely to be a "very complicated" year, but Habanos expected to maintain sales at around the 2008 level.

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Cuban cigars feel pinch of slowdown 

Sales of Cuban cigars dropped by 3% to $US390 million in 2008 under the effects of the world financial crisis and the spread of anti-smoking laws.

Distributor Habanos says the fall in sales reflects a more general decline in the market for luxury products.

However, vice-president Manuel Garcia expects to maintain sales in 2009 at 2008 levels.

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Las Tunas toward an Efficient Tobacco Campaign 

After the sowing of some one thousand hectares this month, the tobacco planters of the eastern province of Las Tunas advance toward an efficient campaign, in which they have foreseen to harvest one thousand tons of dry tobacco.

They expect to obtain yields of a ton per hectare, superiors to those reached in the last five years, for that reason they have as a priority the careful agricultural treatment to the sowed areas.

It is significant because those more than 400 producers of Las Tunas, some 690 kilometers of Havana, had to carry out an extraordinary effort to reach their plantation goal and to repair the houses to cure the leaves, damaged by the hurricanes Ike and Paloma last September and November, reports the Cuban News Agency.

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• Sometimes, a Political Position Is Just About Wanting a Cigar  

The cover of the latest issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine.

Inside, public policy experts outline the history of United States engagement with Cuba and argue for abolishing preconditions if the United States should re-engage with Cuba.

It is an oddly liberal position for a rather conservative magazine. When one thinks of Cigar Aficionado, one thinks -- fairly or unfairly -- of rich, right-wing men puffing away on their Cohibas.

But Gordon Mott, the magazine's executive editor, said it was not out of the ordinary. . . .

Now, "we have a new administration that we, at least, believe has some receptivity to the idea that our Cuba policy needs to be re-examined," Mr. Mott said. "It is a propitious time to raise the question and be very pointed in some of the things that we believe."

Asked if he was worried about alienating some readers, Mr. Mott said he was not. . . .

So is Cigar Aficionado's position that cigars are more important than politics?

"I'd just say cigars bring people together," Mr. Mott said. "They provide a common ground for people to, let's say, maybe, rise above politics.

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In this Issue 

FEBRUARY 2009

It has been 50 years since a small band of insurgents led by Fidel Castro brought down the Batista dictatorship. As the United States prepares for a change of administration, the latest Cigar Aficionado takes the opportunity to offer Barack Obama arguments for why we believe it is time for the U.S. to change its foreign policy towards Cuba.

Two articles you won't want to miss include a memo to Barack Obama drafted by a foreign policy expert that explains why and how the embargo should be lifted as well as James Suckling's piece about the last 50 years of the Cuban cigar industry. We also take a look at how previous administrations have communicated with Fidel Castro and offer up some places tourists would want to visit in Cuba should travel to the island nation be granted.

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Cuba, Dominican Republic to Hold Cigar Festivals 

The two largest cigar-making nations will be holding their own separate, unaffiliated cigar festivals next month: Cuba's 11th Habanos Festival and the Dominican's second ProCigar Festival.

The celebrations draw cigar enthusiasts from all over the world, providing a festive education through seminars, factory and farm tours, gala dinners and other cigar-related events intended to spread cigar awareness. Fans of Cuban or Dominican cigars get the chance to immerse themselves in each country's respective cigar culture by visiting the world's cigar-producing epicenters with their fellow aficionados and getting sneak peeks of the upcoming products slated for 2009.

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• A Brief History Of The Cigar  

Castro's regime (and American attempts to eliminated it) prompted the Bay of Pigs debacle, closed off a beautiful country with a vibrant music culture, and -- possibly worst of all -- triggered a 46-year-old trade embargo that has deprived Americans of Cuba's most prized export: its vaunted cigars.

Though Cuban cigars are perhaps the world's most revered, the stogie probably didn't originate on the island. Cigar smoking first took hold elsewhere in the Americas--exactly where and when remains uncertain. . . .

Ulysses S. Grant's cigar habit proved his undoing, saddling him with the throat cancer that killed him. And Freud was a chimney: Patients on his couch had to endure not only running commentary about their suppressed Oedipal complexes but the acrid stench from his 20-a-day cigar habit (which ultimately killed him too).

Despite the obvious health risks, cigars remain a fixture of pop culture. An episode of Seinfeld centered around a box of Cubans, while the stogie's famous champions include Michael Jordan, Rush Limbaugh and Lil' Wayne. Politicians dabble too . . .

Yet Washington is where cigar-lovers looking to enjoy a smooth Cohiba or Romeo y Julieta -- without skirting the law -- can look for hope. President-elect Barack Obama has indicated a willingness to discuss with Raul Castro the repeal of bans on Cuban-American travel and remittances--gestures that could ultimately lead to scrapping the trade embargo. For aficionados, that would be a welcome tonic for the grim times ahead. As Evelyn Waugh said, "The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Havana cigar."

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• Cuban cigar supply said not hurt by hurricanes  

Hurricanes Gustav and Ike destroyed up to 2 million pounds of Cuba's best tobacco, but reserves of the leaf should cover demand for the island's premium cigars for the next year, a tobacco executive said on Wednesday.

The storms, which struck within 10 days of each other, caused major damage to the tobacco industry infrastructure, which will require a significant investment to repair, said Manuel Garcia, vice president of cigar producer Habanos S.A.

"We think that for at least the next year we should not have great difficulties with the supply of cigars because luckily for us, we have a reserve of raw material," he said at a Havana business conference.

"Undoubtedly we are going to need an important financial injection for the tobacco (industry)," he said.

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