84 AUGUST 2019
Major
Leaves
Following in his family’s footsteps,
Jorge Padrón continues to refine the
art of exceptionally well-made cigars.
BY JANICE O’LEARY PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANCESCA VOLPIGenius at Work
like many cuban natives, the late Jose O. Padrón fled Cuba during the
1960s and settled in Miami. With just $600, he started his eponymous cigar
company (padron.com), hiring one employee who rolled cigars by day, which
Padrón hawked at Miami’s many Cuban cafeterias at night. Equipped with
memories of his family’s own Cuban tobacco farm, he knew what a great cigar
should smell and taste like, and that was his benchmark. He began tinkering
with tobacco from Brazil, Puerto Rico and elsewhere until he stumbled across
habano leaf from Nicaragua, the closest in quality to what his family grew.
From there, the business took off.
Now run by the fourth and fifth generations, and staffed with 110 rollers,
the company still makes its premium cigars by hand. Jose’s son, Jorge, oversees
the Miami-based operations as well as the manufacturing facility and farms in
Nicaragua. “Making cigars is a labor-intensive, complicated process,” he says.
“So many things can go wrong, and any slip can affect the quality down the line.”
The secret to making a first-rate cigar? “The blending,” he says. “We don’t go for
strong. We go for layers of flavors, so the cigar is not one-dimensional.”1 TOP
Field of DreamsIn 1970, the Miami-based founder of
Padrón Cigars, Jose O. Padrón, opened a
manufacturing facility in a valley in northern
Nicaragua, where the brand’s habano
tobacco is planted on about 300 acres. He
discovered the richness of that land by
chance in 1967, through a tobacco-growing
experiment done by Nicaragua’s then
president, Anastasio Somoza Debayle.84 AUGUST 2019
Major
Leaves
Following in his family’s footsteps,
Jorge Padrón continuestorefine the
art of exceptionally well-madecigars.
BYJANICEO’LEARY PHOTOGRAPHYBYFRANCESCAVOLPIGenius at Work
like many cuban natives, the late Jose O. Padrón fled Cuba during the
1960s and settled in Miami. With just $600, he started his eponymous cigar
company (padron.com), hiring one employee who rolled cigars by day, which
Padrón hawked at Miami’s many Cuban cafeterias at night. Equipped with
memories of his family’s own Cuban tobacco farm, he knew what a great cigar
should smell and taste like, and that was his benchmark. He began tinkering
with tobacco from Brazil, Puerto Rico and elsewhere until he stumbled across
habano leaf from Nicaragua, the closest in quality to what his family grew.
From there, the business took off.
Now run by the fourth and fifth generations, and staffed with 110 rollers,
the company still makes its premium cigars by hand. Jose’s son, Jorge, oversees
the Miami-based operations as well as the manufacturing facility and farms in
Nicaragua. “Making cigars is a labor-intensive, complicated process,” he says.
“So many things can go wrong, and any slip can affect the quality down the line.”
The secret to making a first-rate cigar? “The blending,” he says. “We don’t go for
strong. We go for layers of flavors, so the cigar is not one-dimensional.”1 TOP
Field of DreamsIn 1970, the Miami-based founder of
Padrón Cigars, Jose O. Padrón, opened a
manufacturing facility in a valley in northern
Nicaragua, where the brand’s habano
tobacco is planted on about 300 acres. He
discovered the richness of that land by
chance in 1967, through a tobacco-growing
experiment done by Nicaragua’s then
president, Anastasio Somoza Debayle.