Perique has made a fiery comeback due to outside investors who are breathing new life into St. James Parish's uniquely pungent tobacco
Jump to full article: New Orleans (LA) Times Picayune, 2008-07-06
Author: Jen DeGregorio Business writer
Intro: Louisiana's 40-acre tobacco trade seems a speck on the agricultural map.
Even at its height in 1922, farmers planted just 1,100 acres of Louisiana's only breed of tobacco, known as perique. Its home in Grand Point, a remote outpost in St. James Parish, is too small to merit its own ZIP code.
Yet perique has achieved fame as far afield as Europe and Asia among connoisseurs who prize the plant's pungent, fruity taste.
"I kind of equate that product with a cognac," said Mike Little, vice president of operations for Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co., which has become perique's biggest customer. "It's a little sweeter and heavier in the way it smokes."
For all its charms, perique has struggled to survive as tobacco farmers nationwide have slowed production of the plant now synonymous with cancer and corporate corruption. But perique has staged a surprising comeback since 2005, with the state's seven tobacco farms nearly doubling the crop's footprint and tripling production to more than 58,000 pounds last year.
Santa Fe started using the leaf in a special blend of its Natural American Spirit cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco pouches. . . .
Located in two barns along historic River Road in Convent, L.A. Poche has been the parish's main perique processor since the 1930s.
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