Neat Little Cigar History Link

Puff_Dougie

Shared this with a few others and they found it an interesting read. Thought I'd share it here for folks who like to read up on the history of our grand obsession...

A Brief History of the Cigar Industry

Rain

I wonder how much of this is truth and how much is smoke.“I went back to look at our financials dating back to 1992, and I will honestly tell you that, based on our sales increases beginning in 1993, I would have had no problem guessing the year [the magazine] started,” says John Oliva Sr., the head of Oliva Tobacco Co., one of the cigar world’s leading names in growing and brokering cigar tobacco. “It was, in my opinion, Cigar Aficionado that kick-started the boom.”

0patience

Rain:

I wonder how much of this is truth and how much is smoke.“I went back to look at our financials dating back to 1992, and I will honestly tell you that, based on our sales increases beginning in 1993, I would have had no problem guessing the year [the magazine] started,” says John Oliva Sr., the head of Oliva Tobacco Co., one of the cigar world’s leading names in growing and brokering cigar tobacco. “It was, in my opinion, Cigar Aficionado that kick-started the boom.”

These comments are only my opinion for the perspective of what I saw in those days.

I don't know that I would give the credit to Cigar Aficionado totally.
But it was about the time that Cigar Aficionado started becoming an established, which exposed a lot of people, including myself to new cigars they had never seen or heard of before.
So while Cigar Aficionado can take some of the credit.
But I'd say that the internet had more of an impact.

Before 1993, if you were a cigar smoker, you pretty much had Upmann, RyJ, Montecristo, Partagas and Macanudo to choose from. As that is what most "local" tobacco shops and newspaper shacks/stores carried, which is where a lot of folks bought their cigars.
I got mine from the local newspaper store. They sold newspapers, magazines and cigars.
Even after Cigar Aficionado came out, the likelihood that you would see half the cigars that they talked about in their magazines, was pretty slim, unless you lived in places like LA, Chicago and New York.

In 1996 when the internet really took off and Cigar Aficionado went online, that is when things really exploded in the cigar industry. Everything that had been released in the previous years, was now available online.
Unfortunately, that meant a ton of garbage was available online too.
And then a certain cigar auction site popped up and started clearing out those "cigar boom" cigars.
And people like myself ended up buying those cigars for very little. Only to find out why we paid so little for them. LOL!

Rain

Thanks for that knowledge, Tony.

0patience

Rain:

Thanks for that knowledge, Tony.

Oh yeah, I forgot one cigar that you could get. Arturo Fuente! LOL!
The curly head was available at quite a few places in those days.

Puff_Dougie

Rain:

I wonder how much of this is truth and how much is smoke.“I went back to look at our financials dating back to 1992, and I will honestly tell you that, based on our sales increases beginning in 1993, I would have had no problem guessing the year [the magazine] started,” says John Oliva Sr., the head of Oliva Tobacco Co., one of the cigar world’s leading names in growing and brokering cigar tobacco. “It was, in my opinion, Cigar Aficionado that kick-started the boom.”

Oh, no doubt the author engages in a bit of smoke-blowing for the host publication. I was more interested in the general history of the cigar industry pre- and post-embargo and how things evolved throughout those years in the different cigar-producing countries.

Rain

I agree completely, the article was great. It was just not lost on me that a CA article had a CA plug haha.

PAtoNH

Interesting article. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there was no mention of Lew Rothman. Back in the pre-internet & pre-boutique days, his catalog was the highlight of the mail when it arrived each month. He ran a company that was the polar opposite of CA in terms of demographics and vision.

0patience

PAtoNH:

Interesting article. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there was no mention of Lew Rothman. Back in the pre-internet & pre-boutique days, his catalog was the highlight of the mail when it arrived each month. He ran a company that was the polar opposite of CA in terms of demographics and vision.

The king of the bundler.
Sell 5 packs and sell them fast. LOL!
He was definitely ahead of things.

PAtoNH

Rothman was interested in selling cigars at great prices to regular guys who liked smoking cigars. He sold to a market that wasn't interested in reviews and flavor profiles. CA sold "the lifestyle" to consumers and along the way they convinced the market that $15 wasn't too much to spend for a cigar… perfect timing in the heady days of tech stocks on Wall Street.

When Rothman sold his company it all went downhill and Ccom's sister company owns that market now.

Here's an interesting article from 1998 from industry B&M mag "Smokeshop" Rothman

Puff_Dougie

Great read, Mike! Thanks for posting!

PAtoNH

You're welcome, Doug. (old man rant: ON) I was introduced to cigars in the early 90s and Lew's catalog was the best mail order/call order business there was… great prices and selection. Then the boom jacked prices through the roof, made old favorites scarce and degraded the general quality of what was available (mostly by shipping wet cigars). Because there were no forums then you could never get good information… seasoning my humidor? calibrating an analog hygrometer? Salt test? Huh, what?… buy a humi, drop in the smokes with the floral foam puck loaded with tap water and off you went.

Because of the quality issues I found a few favorites and smoked them pretty exclusively for a decade… R&J Vintage No. 6, ERdM Flor de Llaneza, HdM double maduro and a few others. In recent years and with the help of this forum, I stretching out a bit. I think we're experiencing a Golden Age in cigars… very exciting!

Puff_Dougie

[Old Man Rant: ON] Back in my day, we used to have to walk 50 miles to the nearest B&M... through snow and broken glass... uphill.... both ways! When we got there, we were lucky if they had a handful of philly blunts that had been sitting in the janitor's closet for 85 years. Most times they were even out of those, and the old man behind the counter would offer us his half-chewed old dog rocket and we'd take it and be happy about it! You young whipper snappers don't know how good you have it! These kids today!!! [Old Man Rant: OFF]

PAtoNH

That's EXACTLY what I meant to write! Thank you!!

jgibv

Doug, you ever seen "the cigar museum" website? http://cigarhistory.info/Site/What_you_can_see.html

Not the "prettiest" site in the world but there's some really cool stuff on there. I think you'll enjoy it
Some of the guys here showed me that site on one of my first posts (I think it was Kuzi who shared the link with me but not 100% sure)

Puff_Dougie

Looks like a great site! Thanks!

jarubla

Ok, another fantastic post, plumbed from the older posts, to be shared with the noobs.

Read on.

Considering changing my handle to necro_plumber

-Jay

edelrionyc

I've heard this several times that Cigar Aficionado kick started the boom.  I would say that they might have helped spread the word but I don't agree with kick starting.  Why would someone publish a magazine if there wasn't already a following to capitalize on.