A Brief History of the Cigar Industry

 

(Cigar Aficionado) The year was 1992. The American cigar industry was in poor shape. The customer base was aging and contracting, sales had been in a steady 30-year decline and the men who made cigars and grew tobacco no longer encouraged their children to follow in their footsteps.
“I did not think that there was a future in the cigar industry,” said Carlos Toraño in 2006, speaking about the state of the cigar industry in the 1980s. His father, grandfather, cousins, uncles—just about everyone with the surname Toraño had worked with cigar tobacco, dating back to Cuba in 1916. But he was happy when his son Charlie chose a new career path, opting to become a lawyer instead of a tobacco man in August 1992. Continued