Arturo Fuente is a cigar brand founded by Arturo Fuente, Sr. in 1912 in West Tampa, Florida. Following a catastrophic fire in 1924, the brand had a production freeze for 22 years, reemerging in 1946 on a limited, local basis. Ownership was transferred to Arturo's younger son, Carlos Fuente, Sr. in 1958. Following the 1960 United States embargo of Cuba, the Fuente brand began a period of slow and steady growth, emerging as one of the most critically acclaimed makers of hand-rolled premium cigars outside of Cuba. As of 2010, the company was producing 30 million cigars per annum from its factory in the Dominican Republic.
The Arturo Fuente cigar brand was born in 1912 in West Tampa, Florida.[1] The brand was launched by a 24-year-old Cuban émigré named Arturo Fuente (November 18, 1887 – February 11, 1973) as A. Fuente & Co.[2] Fuente had come to the United States in 1902, leaving his hometown of Güines, Cuba in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War.
The original factory used by the company was a three-story wooden building, one of nearly 200 cigar-making facilities in the city of Tampa alone.[2] All of these manufacturers would import tobacco from nearby Cuba for production into finished cigars.[2]
The company was incorporated in 1924, by which time A. Fuente & Co. had grown to the point that it employed 500 workers.[2] However late in 1924 disaster struck the company and their building burned to the ground.[2] Production of the brand was halted; it would not be until 1946, 22 years later, that production of the brand resumed.[1]
1946 reestablishment
By the end of World War II Arturo Fuente had finally recovered from the catastrophic losses suffered in 1924 fire and the Great Depression had abated, making a return to cigar manufacturing again conceivable.[2] Fuente relaunched his brand "in the garage," so to speak—adding a few rolling tables to the 160 square foot back porch of his home in Ybor City, Florida.[2]
Production was a family affair at the time of the 1946 restart, with Arturo and his wife rolling full-time, joined by a few other hired torcedores.[2] Arturo's sons—Carlos and Arturo, Jr.—were soon drafted into the enterprise, sweeping the floors and helping with the rolling after school.[2]
Carlos Fuente, Sr., the son of Arturo, contracted polio as a boy of 12 but was fortunate in recovering well enough to walk normally, unlike many victims of the disease.[3] He dropped out of school before graduating high school and was married at age 18.[4] Because the cigar business struggled during the 1940s and 1950s, Carlos, Sr. took a job as a baker to help make ends meet, while his wife worked full-time in another factory while both moonlighted at Fuente.[5]
Throughout the 1950s Fuente remained exclusively a local Tampa brand, with the company's entire production sold in that city on a cash-and-carry basis.[5]
Transfer of ownership
Arturo Fuente, Sr. had originally envisioned passing the small family cigar business on to his eldest son, Arturo, Junior, but it was his younger son Carlos that spent the most time working in the firm, so it was to him that it was offered in 1958.[6] Carlos Fuente, Sr. bought the business from his father for exactly $1—purchasing $1,161 in assets and zero debt.[6] At the time the company made only a few thousand cigars a year.[6]
Carlos, Sr. was ambitious and sought to expand the business, first seeking to establish new accounts in other parts of Florida before setting his sights on New York City.[6] Fuente initially targeted a Hispanic market for its product.[6] Growth was slow since cigar smokers of the era were brand loyal and not prone to the sampling of new products.[6]
Arturo Fuente cigar boxes at 2005 Tampa Cigar Heritage Festival. The Montesino cigars are also produced by Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia.
Up until the 1962 embargo, cigars were typically made in the United States of Cuban tobacco. Following the embargo, access to Cuban tobacco was abruptly terminated, forcing every cigar maker to change the blends that they used.[6] Carlos Fuente, Sr. later recalled:
"In the old days, people were very brand true. Brand loyal. ... I feel the embargo put everybody level. People had to shop around to find a different taste that they liked."[6]
Fuente shopped for new sources of tobacco, buying leaf from new regions like Puerto Rico and Colombia.[6] Blending skills were then employed in an effort to create a flavor appealing to smokers who had developed an affection for classic Havano flavors.[6]
Rising labor costs made continued American production uneconomical.[6] In addition, the company had increasing difficulty in finding qualified cigar rollers in Florida.[6] Efforts were made to establish the brand's production in Mexico and Puerto Rico, but quality from these factories was deemed insufficient.[6]
In the 1970s contacts were made between Carlos Fuente, Sr. and a representative of the blossoming Nicaraguan cigar industry and the company soon moved its production to Estelí in the Northwestern part of that Central American country.[6] However, disaster again struck in 1979 when the Fuente factory was burned to the ground during the Nicaraguan Revolution.[6]
With Nicaragua a total loss, Carlos Fuente, Sr. mortgaged his house to raise capital and his son Carlos, Jr. added whatever money he had available and the family moved to the Dominican Republic to begin anew.[7] Carlos Fuente, Sr. later recalled the decision to build inventory as decisive:
"When I first started in the Dominican, all our profit, we stuck it back. All our profit was always invested in tobacco. And aged tobacco is the most important thing that you can have. We always had a lot of aged tobacco. And as we started aging more and more, we started doing better."[8]
In September 1980 Tabacalera A. Fuente opened a 12,000 square foot factory in Santiago Dominican Republic.[9]
The company scored its first success of its "Dominican Period" in the middle 1980s with the launch of the medium-bodied Hemingways line — an attempt to break new ground in the market through the use of special shapes.[10]
At the end of the 1980s the company began to grow its own tobacco on a substantial scale for the first time, investing in roads and curing barns.[11] The company even took on the challenge of growing its own wrapper leaf—the most difficult and risky component of a cigar to produce.
Company today
As of 2010, Carlos Fuente, Sr. and his son Carlos Fuente, Jr. oversaw an operation that produced more than 30 million cigars per year.[9] Carlos Fuente, Sr. died August 5, 2016, in Tampa. He was 81.[12]
Specific products
The Arturo Fuente line of cigars ranges from the inexpensive to the premium.
The full-bodied Fuente Fuente Opus X, introduced to the market in November 1995, is regarded the brand's flagship product.[11] The cigar is a Dominican puro (i.e. 100% grown in that one country) making use of Rosado wrapper grown by Fuente's own farm.[13] The cigar is made in 13 vitolas ranging in size from the 4-5/8 inch by 49 ring gauge "Belicoso XXX" to the massive 9+1⁄4-inch by 47 "Perfecxion A."[13] The cigar achieved great critical success, with the corona size named as Cigar Aficionado magazine's 2005 Cigar of the Year and the Belicoso XXX rated by that publication as the world's number 3 release in 2010.[11]
In 2004 Cuban-American actor and director Andy García contacted Carlos Fuente, Jr. seeking to film scenes for the film The Lost City in the Fuente tobacco fields.[14] The film was scheduled to shoot in July of that year, however—a time after the crop had already been harvested.[14] To provide a setting for the film 15 acres were planted by Fuente in tobacco during what would ordinarily have been the off season.[14] The resulting special crop—harvested, cured, and manufactured for first release in 2009 — was very successfully marketed as the Opus X Lost City Edition. Five vitolas of this special edition were produced in 2010, with very limited productions ranging from 4,000 to 12,000 cigars per size.[14]
Fuente is also known for quality control. The Fuente family packs their cigar boxes with an advanced 2-way humidification device (Boveda) that helps to ensure the stability and freshness of the end product.
The company also makes some of the cigars sold by the J.C. Newman Cigar Company of Tampa, Florida.[16] J.C. Newman returns the favor, handling the production of all of Arturo Fuente's machine-made product.[16]
Arturo Fuente partnered with Swiss watchmaker Hublot to release several watches dedicated to their cigars: the Hublot King Power Arturo Fuente in 2012, and the Hublot Classic Fusion ForbiddenX in 2014.[17]
A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaves made to be smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct components: the filler, the binder leaf which holds the filler together, and a wrapper leaf, which is often the highest quality leaf used. Often there will be a cigar band printed with the cigar manufacturer's logo. Modern cigars can come with two or more bands, especially Cuban cigars, showing Limited Edition bands displaying the year of production.
Cuban cigars are cigars manufactured in Cuba from tobacco grown within that island nation. Historically regarded as among the world's “finest”, they are synonymous with the island's culture and contribute nearly one quarter of the value of all exports from the country.
Cohiba is a brand for two kinds of premium cigar, one produced in Cuba for Habanos S.A., the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic for US-based General Cigar Company. The name cohíba derives from the Taíno word for "tobacco".
Montecristo is a brand of cigars and cigarettes produced separately and independently in Cuba by Habanos S.A., the national tobacco company, and in La Romana, Dominican Republic by Altadis, a subsidiary of British conglomerate Imperial Brands.
Bolívar is the name of two brands of premium cigar, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic from Dominican and Nicaraguan tobacco for General Cigar Company, which is today a subsidiary of Scandinavian Tobacco Group. Both are named for the South American revolutionary, Simón Bolívar.
Por Larrañaga is the name of a cigar brand produced in Cuba for Habanos S.A., the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, as well as a non-Cuban line of cigars produced in the Dominican Republic and Honduras for Altadis, a subsidiary of Imperial Brands. Por Larrañaga cigars have been in continuous production in Cuba since 1834.
Don José "Pepin" Garcia is the CEO of El Rey de los Habanos, Inc, a cigar company in Miami, also known as My Father Cigars. He is a noted cigar maker living in Miami, Florida. Born in Cuba, he is a master cigar roller and blender, and the creator and maker of numerous popular cigar brands.
Cuesta-Rey is a brand of handmade cigar, founded in 1884 by Angel LaMadrid Cuesta and Peregrino Rey. Cuesta, a Spaniard, had apprenticed in cigar making in Cuba before he met Rey. They formed the company in the Ybor City district of Tampa, Florida to make 'clear Havana' cigars. As well as making their own brands they made cigars for other companies such as Nat Sherman.
J.C. Newman Cigar Company was established in 1895 and is the oldest family-owned premium cigar maker in the United States. It was founded in Cleveland, Ohio by Julius Caeser Newman, a Hungarian immigrant. The business relocated to a historic 1910 cigar factory in the Cigar City of Ybor City, Florida in 1954. The family business is now in its fourth generation of Newman ownership.
Diamond Crown is a brand of cigar handmade by Tabacalera A. Fuente in the Dominican Republic for the J.C. Newman Cigar Company.
Ernesto Padilla is a Cuban-American artist, graphic designer and cigar maker. He is the son of Cuban poet, Heberto Padilla.
Piloto Cigars Inc. is a private company that produces the Padrón cigar brand from Nicaragua. Commonly known as Padrón Cigars, the company was founded in September 8, 1964, in Miami, Florida, by Cuban-native José Orlando Padrón. In 1970, Padrón moved the company to Estelí, Nicaragua.
Don Rolando Reyes Sr. was a well-known Honduran cigar maker of Cuban origin formerly residing in Danlí, Honduras. He was a master blender, roller and is the creator of Cuba Aliados, Puros Indios and other cigar brands.
Fuente Fuente OpusX is the premier cigar line in the Arturo Fuente Cigar family. Made by Tabacalera A. Fuente, this cigar is consistently ranked as the single most sought-after cigar in the world by Cigar Aficionado and the line is held by many to be the greatest cigar in history to date. The cigars are rare and can be difficult to obtain. Prized by collectors, many OpusX's sell for 300% or more of their suggested retail price on the secondary market. Fuente Fuente OpusX cigars are wrapped in tobacco leaves which are grown at the Chateau de la Fuente plantation in a tropic river valley in the Dominican Republic.
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Perdomo is a brand of cigars primarily grown and produced in Nicaragua and sold worldwide by Tabacalera Perdomo. Manufactured by Perdomo Cigars, the company is a family owned and operated business headquartered in Miami Lakes, Florida and headed by CEO Nick Perdomo, Jr.
Tabacalera Fernandez, best known to the English-speaking world as A.J. Fernandez Cigars, is a maker of cigars primarily grown and produced in Nicaragua and sold worldwide. The company is run by Abdel J. Fernandez, a third generation cigarmaker, and is a prominent manufacturer of cigars sold under a variety of labels, including "Man O'War," "Diesel," and "San Lotano".
Frank Anthony Llaneza was a tobacco blender and former executive of Villazon & Co. who is regarded as a pioneer in the resurgence of the premium cigar industry at the end of the 20th Century. Llaneza is best known for the creation and manufacture of a number of popular cigar brands in the years after the 1962 Cuban Embargo, including Hoyo de Monterrey, Punch, Bolivar, and Siglo.
Camacho Cigars was founded in 1962 by Simon Camacho and acquired by the Eiroa family in 1995. Now part of the Oettinger Davidoff Group, Camacho Cigars is based in Danlí, Honduras, and specializes in handmade Cuban seed cigars. After being exiled from Cuba in 1961, Simon Camacho, who was originally from Cuba, began his cigar business in Miami, Florida. Simon Camacho’s cigars gained success in the United States, as well as abroad, and even found a fan in the company of British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Consequently, Camacho has since named one of its most popular cigars after Mr. Churchill. The vitola was developed in the Romeo Y Julieta factory in Cuba in approximately 1903. Production during this period reached 2 to 3 million cigars per year and the quantity continued to grow as the 1990s cigar boom years approached.
José Blanco is the former Senior Vice President of the oldest Nicaraguan cigar company, Joya de Nicaragua S.A., in Estelí, Nicaragua, and the former Sales Director of La Aurora, the oldest Dominican cigar company in Santiago, Dominican Republic. He is a master blender of cigars who is renowned not only for those skills but for his tasting seminars, in which he educates cigar consumers on the intricacies of cigar construction, tobacco blending, and taste.
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