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Star Cigar is an internationally distributed brand of cigars and accessories manufactured in the Dominican Republic. The company is one of the top 36 cigar manufacturers worldwide. [1]
The S.O.B Dominican cigar brand can be linked to its origins from Tabaqueria Carbonell CXA, a company founded in 1894 with over a century of experience in cigar manufacturing. Fran “Shon” Shatone Brooks invented the product and introduced it to the United States in May 2013. [2]
Brooks Entertainment Inc. collaborated with Jose Rivas from the Dominican Republic for the design. Brooks Entertainment Inc. purposefully withheld authorization for suppliers in different states to sell their cigars. [3]
Instead of relying on traditional cigar trunk trade shows, the brand focused on the quality of hand-rolled cigars and leveraged the fan following of Shon Brooks. [3]
Robusto cigars, a Star Cigar product line, are created from a mixture of Dominican tobacco leaves. They are finished with a round cap. The wrapper is of the type Carbonell and Quintin which gives a unique texture, aroma, taste or flavor. [4]
The S.O.B. cigar was described as being tan, smooth, and silky. The flavor and strength were described as being medium, mild and spicy. [4]
Star Cigar" becomes one of the highest rated cigars on the planet., [1] a quarterly lifestyle publication for cigar enthusiasts. The cigar received ratings between 87 and 95 on a 100-point rating scale.
The S.O.B. Cigar scored 95% with a 90% (A+) overall grade. [1] [3] [4]
In March 2014, less than a year after it was introduced to consumers, S.O.B. Robusto was featured in Smoke Magazine, cigarweekly (The limited Shon Brooks [5]
In 2014, Brooks secured an agreement with Hard Rock to retail the cigars in the five-star Hard Rock Casino in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. [6]
A cigar is a tobacco product made to be smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of shapes and sizes. 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, for appearance and flavor, 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, highlighting special qualities such as age and origin of the tobaccos used.
Cigar Aficionado is an American lifestyle magazine that is dedicated to enjoying the “good life” and the world of cigars. It is a publication of M. Shanken Communications, which also publishes Wine Spectator, Whisky Advocate, Market Watch, Shanken News Daily and IMPACT Newsletter.
Life Savers is an American brand of ring-shaped hard and soft candy. Its range of mints and fruit-flavored candies is known for its distinctive packaging, coming in paper-wrapped aluminum foil rolls.
Nat Sherman is the brand name for a line of handmade cigars and "luxury cigarettes". The company, which began as a retail tobacconist, continued to operate a flagship retail shop, known as the "Nat Sherman Townhouse", located on 42nd Street, off Fifth Avenue, in New York City from 1930 to 2020. Corporate offices are now located at the foot of the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Chiclets is an American brand of candy-coated chewing gum manufactured by Perfetti Van Melle. The brand was introduced in 1900 by the American Chicle Company, a company founded by Thomas Adams.
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.
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.
H. Upmann is a Cuban brand of premium cigars established by banker Hermann Dietrich Upmann. The brand is currently owned by a British corporation, Imperial Brands. The cigars are manufactured by Habanos S.A., the state-owned tobacco company in Cuba, and Altadis in La Romana, Dominican Republic.
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.
Partagás is a brand name of cigars that are made by two independent & competing entities, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company; the other, containing no Cuban tobacco, produced in the Dominican Republic for General Cigar Company, a division of Scandinavian Tobacco Group of Denmark.
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.
Ernesto Padilla is a Cuban-American artist, graphic designer and cigar maker. He is the son of Cuban poet, Heberto Padilla.
Swisher is an American international tobacco company.
Andre Garcia is a luxury leather product and cigar brand owned by brothers, Abhik Roy and Anindya Roy.
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.
Aristoff is a brand of cigar. The leaves are exclusively grown and cured in Nicaragua. The cigars are all hand-rolled in Chinandega, Nicaragua and at the company's Honduras-based satellite factory. However, The corporate headquarters of this firm lies in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with their principal market being the American Eastern Seaboard. As a relatively new company, the brand was launched amid great fanfare in 2002. The company was marketed heavily on the internet and through a viral marketing campaign. The great expectations fell flat, however, when the first few series of cigars did not meet with popular approval. Sales of the product fell 78% after the first year. Due to this plunge in revenue, the IPO in the company was called off in April 2003.
Quesada Cigars, formally known as MATASA, is a family-owned factory based in the Dominican Republic that specializes in the manufacture of premium cigars. It is best known brand is the Quesada, Casa Magna, Heisenberg & Fonseca line of cigars. Its current president and owner is Manuel "Manolo" Quesada, Jr.
Alec Bradley is the name of a popular brand of handmade cigars established in 1996 by Alan Rubin, the son of an importer of hardware supplies. Rubin launched his brand, named after his children, at the tail end of the cigar boom of the 1990s and entered a clogged market. After failed initial schemes at producing cigars targeted to golf courses and flavored after-dinner cigars, Rubin managed to carve out a tenuous niche selling budget-priced cigars to tobacconists. In 2007 the company managed to break through to a broader market with the introduction of its full-flavored "Tempus" line. As of 2011 the company was selling between two and three million cigars annually to consumers around the world. Alec Bradley is today based in Hollywood, Florida. Over the years a number of manufacturers have been used to make Alec Bradley's various products, including Raices Cubanas of Honduras, Nestor Plasencia in Honduras and Nicaragua, and Henke Kelner in the Dominican Republic. In 2019 it became clear that the company had begun using J. Fuego Cigar Co. de Nicaragua factory in Estelí, Nicaragua as one of its mainstay manufacturers.
Boutique Blends Cigars, formerly the Habana Cuba Cigar Company, is an American manufacturer of premium hand-rolled cigars based in Miami, Florida. The company was established in 1996 during the American cigar boom as the non-Cuban manufacturer of the historic Cuban "Oliveros" brand. The company was sold in 2002 to a new ownership group consisting of the Cuban-born Rafael Nodal, his wife Alina Cordoves Nodal, and Hank Bischoff.