A Special Bale of Tobacco

 

(David Savona/Cigar Aficionado) All good cigar companies have them: packages of tobacco wrapped in burlap or palm known as bales. It's the lifeblood of the industry, the raw material that is painstakingly turned into cigars. Without warehouses filled with bales you simply won't last very long in the cigar business.
J.C. Newman knows that adage well, as it has been making cigars in the United States since 1895, first in Cleveland and today in Tampa's Ybor City. It has plenty of tobacco, but one of the bales in its company headquarters is quite unlike the others. Continued