The Ghost of Cuba Past

Everyone knows that the finest cigars come from Cuba, right?

And everyone also knows that the old Cuban cigars — the pre-Castro, pre-revolution, pre-embargo cigars that you can’t get anymore — are the best of the best, right?

Well, not necessarily. Read on.

Most cigar aficionados know that Fidel Castro seized and nationalized all Cuban tobacco farms and cigar factories in the early 1960s after he had come to power. Castro drove the renowned Cuban cigar families to refuge in other countries. What is not known by most people, however, is how he also brought an end to the island’s international domination of the tobacco world.

Cuba’s close relationship with the Soviet Union was designed to save the island’s economy by imports of Cuba’s agricultural products. The Soviet Union wanted sugar, not cigars. To meet their needs, Castro disbanded the tobacco research facilities and diverted farming from tobacco into sugar production. This brought an end to 300 years of patient, meticulous seed development that had made pre-Castro Cuban cigars the envy of the world. Along with this shift in emphasis, the “ancestral” Cuban tobacco seed stocks were lost — or so it seemed.

On a sixty-five acre farm in Santa Marta de Puriscal, Costa Rica, Tabacos de la Cordillera (Highland Tobacco) is producing cigars from tobacco grown from rare Cuban tobacco seeds dating to the 1940s and 1950s. The story is perhaps one of the most exciting developments in the cigar world in the last fifty years. Tabacos Cordillera director John Vogel, with decades of experience in the genetics and cultivation of tobacco, created the project using his unique collection of 47 seed types.

“Our legendary strains date as far back as 1945, and exist nowhere else worldwide, not even in Cuba,” Vogel said. “Most were developed before Castro aborted research and improvement of Cuban seeds, to focus on sugar crops for Russian Cold War demands. Before that epochal event, following 300 years of development by research scientists and expert tobacco farmers, Cuban tobacco was at its pinnacle of perfection and the envy of the world.

“My acquisition of these long-forgotten ancestral Cuban seeds is not a story of dark intrigue,” Vogel said. “Four decades of business travel to over 20 countries led to associations with world-renowned tobacco researchers and geneticists, including those from Cuban Land, the agricultural research institution that operated in Cuba until Castro disbanded it. These contacts were the sources of the seeds.”

John didn’t smuggle seeds out of Cuba in the hollowed-out heel of a shoe. He aquired this rare genetic material through his worldwide travels while working in the tobacco industry. He met geneticists who had worked for Cuban Land, the agricultural research institution that operated in Cuba until Castro disbanded it. He also met extensively with growers and other experts in the field of Cuban tobacco.

The specimens in his seed collection are virtually all of Cuban lineage. Rezago 11, Pinar del Río, Partido, Vuelta Abajo, Semi-Vuelta, San Luis, Remedios, San Juan y Martínez, Oriente, Pelo de Angel…the names of the tobacco strains are links to a Golden Age that seemed gone forever. Most of the seed stocks came directly from the island. Others are Cuban-seed tobacco grown in other countries — genuine African Cameroon tobacco and the original Dominican Olor. The most unique of his strains is a seed for a tobacco that the Indians in the Caribbean Basin traded with Cuban Indians 300 to 500 years ago. These tribes still grow tobacco from these seeds, which they have carefully maintained for generations. Another prize is the strain of tobacco used not only Castro’s personal cigars, but also in those of the man he deposed, Fulgencio Batista.

This cache of pure seed stock places Tabacos de la Cordillera in a unique position in the cigar world. Vogel’s years in the industry also give him another rare advantage: he has personally sampled countless pre-Castro Havanas, He knows how they should taste. He has also chosen to grow the tobacco in a place where the conditions are optimal for duplicating the nature, flavor, aroma and other characteristics the tobacco had when grown in Cuba.

“We at Tabacos de la Cordillera live and work in a true Shangri-la,” he says. “From a vantage point near our property, you can see both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The climate at the 2,200 foot elevation here is perfect for both tobacco and man. Our farm and factory overlooks a small valley, between the low mountains to the East and West. The valley floor is studded with miniature, craggy mountains, typical of volcanic terrain. They are covered with an emerald-green velvet of vegetation. The view from my office windows is almost totally natural, with only a few small houses in the distance.”

Natural is a hallmark of the cigars Vogel produces. In addition to his special seed stocks, he uses natural growing and pest-control measures like those of the Central American Native Americans who first discovered and cultivated tobacco. For over 2,000 years, they have followed ancient principles in the natural cycles of farming and Vogel follows suit.

Possibly the best part of this story is that you can order cigars made from Vogel’s heritage tobacco directly over the internet — and at bargain prices. His top of the line Cumbres de Puriscal, in three blends and nine shapes, are priced from U.S. $3.25 to $5.90 each. Others include: the Purisco, in two different wrappers and five shapes from $2.70 to $4.75; the Colinas™ — his only short-filler line, that uses picadura tobacco from the Cumbres and the Purisco — in six shapes at $2.50 to $3.05; the Picos™ mini-torpedoes, in your choice of two wrappers at $2.00; and Mini Cigars, in two blends at $1.25 a stick. You can also get a sampler box of five different sizes and blends for $22.20.

You can check out all of the cigars John produces, and more about the story of his special tobacco stocks, at the Tabacos de la Cordillera website. I’m putting his line on my tasting schedule. You might want to do the same.

Posted on Sunday, October 16th, 2005 at 7:40 pm.