The Year of the Cuban Cigar

 

(Cigar Aficionado) Cigar smokers around the world still remember the "dark period" of Cuban cigars, a long stretch of time from around 1998 to 2003 when the quality of construction and taste of their cigars was below par.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 and the subsequent end of billions of dollars in annual subsidies severely impacted Cuba's tobacco industry just as the global cigar boom began. An attempt to meet soaring demand by increasing production with fewer resources—everything from fertilizers to gasoline was in short supply—backfired and undermined the quality of many cigars rolled on the island.
But those days are in the past. Continued