Every great cigar-producing country has the expertise of generations of tobacco growers, naturally rich soils, and rain- and sun-drenched climates (at the very least) to thank for their rise to global prominence. Perhaps strictly by coincidence, each is tiny in stature, which presents Mexico as a unique anomaly in the world of cigar making.
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Stretching from San Diego, Calif. to Brownsville, Texas along its northern U.S. border, and extending clear down to Guatemala and Belize to the south, Mexico is home to the world's eighth-largest city (which alone is more populous than either of its diminutive continental cigar neighbors of Honduras or Nicaragua) and in size could easily swallow up the Caribbean cigar Meccas of Cuba and the Dominican Republic in their entirety as well. That said, one could easily be forgiven for suspiciously envisioning Mexico's cigar producers being scattered from hither to yond: in truth, it's more compact than just about anywhere else.
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Along the Gulf of Mexico, nestled within an isolated fragment of volcanic mountains in Veracruz, lies the ancient and mystic region of Los Tuxtlas, home of the San Andrés Valley and, it just so happens, Mexico's entire premium cigar industry. It is here that generations of tobacco growers have coaxed tobaccos from the rich volcanic soil and meticulously guide their journey to finished cigars. Only one other significant producer today has an older commercial cigar making tradition than Mexico: Cuba, whose own farmers arrived in Mexico in the 19th century. Mexico, though, can actually claim the earliest bragging rights, since it is widely believed that tobacco plants probably came from Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, and was most likely first smoked by the continent's earliest native inhabitants.
The tobaccos grown here are as distinct in taste as their history. San Andrés Negro, a dark, spicy leaf used famously as maduro wrapper but also as filler, is the region's oldest seed, not entirely unlike some dark Brazilian varieties. Buff-hued Sumatra wrapper was brought to the valley by the Dutch and left behind when they abandoned their attempts to establish a viable tobacco business of their own. More recently, disease-resistant Cuban-seed Criollo and Corojo hybrids have also joined the roster. Soils in the San Andrés Valley successfully support a wide variety of seed-rarely the case in growing regions of other countries. Over time, the seed strains evolve into distinct variations from the original, with tastes reflecting the region's soil.
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There is, indeed, no shortage of irony when it comes to Mexican cigars, which continue to exist in an interesting world of contrasts. While some cigar-producing countries wax poetic about their ongoing quests to create viable puros (cigars rolled entirely from domestically-grown tobaccos), Mexico was entirely built on them. It once supplied America's number one cigar brand, and reached it zenith of influence in the U.S. market in 1997, witnessing a steep slide in exports in the years since, losing ground to multi-nation blend cigars from competing origins. By the time Mexico's government warily relaxed restrictions on importing foreign tobaccos for Mexican cigar makers to use in their blends, considerable momentum had already been lost, and the remaining barriers continued to prove problematic for all but the largest Mexican cigar makers.
"Before, you were prohibited," explains Rodolfo Vázquez Andrade, Director of Fábrica de Puros Irene S.A., a small cigar maker in San Andres Tuxtla "Now, you are allowed, but you have to go through a lot of paperwork and pay a lot of money." In 1998, Vázquez-a third generation cigar maker-took the helm of the company that his grandmother, cigar roller Irene Venegas Arroyo, started in 1957. He and his wife, Canadian-borne Rachel Pauline Clark de Vazquez, continue to produce strictly Mexican puros, like many other small cigar makers in Mexico. Proud of Mexico's tobacco traditions, he's frustrated by the government's red tape that limits his ability to blend for export markets and to compete with other nations that are free from restrictions. The company's brands-Irene and Irene Royal Blend-are sold primarily in Europe and Asia, but has limited distribution in the U.S., primarily Tampa and Atlanta.
Mexico's largest cigar maker, Nueva Matacapan Tabacos S.A., continues to lead the way with the latest technologies on its farms and factory, from developing hybrid tobaccos to the construction of high-tech curing barns. Both a major tobacco grower that sells Mexican leaf to the world's top cigar makers, and a producer of its own cigar brands, the company is best known for its flagship Te-Amo brand, which in the years following President Kennedy's embargo on all things Cuban, grew into a leading U.S. brand. Company patriarch Alberto Turrent IV has seen San Andres Tuxtla grow from an isolated rural enclave into a bustling destination since he began in the business in the 1960s. The company sells or exports about 80 percent of the tobaccos it grows, using the balance to produce its own cigars. His son Alejandro is the fifth generation Turrent to work in the family's business, and shares the same pride as his father that the rich, volcanic soils of the San Andres Valley are well-suited to grow many different types of seeds, but believes that Mexican makers should be able to readily tap the different tastes of leaf grown in other countries in order to appeal to larger segments of the market.
To that end, Te-Amo has in fact expanded from its original all-Mexican blend to include several additional non-puro blends over the years. First came the Te-Amo Aniversario, and then most recently the Te-Amo World Selection Series, which paired Mexican binder and wrappers with fillers from either Honduras, Nicaragua, or Dominican Republic. "We use a few leaves from these tobaccos in those blends," says Alejandro. "Even though they're only half of one leaf, it tastes completely different, you taste them through the other tobaccos." Interestingly, the newest Te-Amo World Selection Cuba Blend is in fact a Mexican puro with predominantly Habano-seed leaf. Alejandro notes the government worries that foreign tobacco imports into Mexico will come at the expense of Mexican tobaccos, but he believes the market would only grow for Mexican cigars, actually increasing their use of Mexico's tobacco.
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Regardless of a tobacco's origins, Turrents have the resources and discipline to ferment and age all of their tobaccos properly-3-1/2 years minimum. Alejandro is also President of an association of Mexican cigar makers that seeks to collectively promote Mexican cigars and ensure high quality standards, an effort to combat the poor quality cigars made by tiny storefont or home-based chinchalles that ply their goods on unsuspecting tourists in vacation areas. About five years ago, they also began tracking precise details about each batch of leaves-the type of tobacco, the field in which it was grown, and the exact priming (leaf position on the stalk) it was harvested, a practice done by only a minority of premium cigar makers. "It tells you a lot; it really is the best to make the blend," says Alejandro. At a practical level, it's only something that can be done by cigar makers who grow their own tobacco, but allows precise specification of blends for rolling cigars, for extreme consistency from cigar to cigar and another effort raising the bar for Mexican cigars.
New blends aren't the only changes the Turrents have introduced to the valley: high-tech barns, like those now in use in Cuba that were subsidized by Europe's Altadis S.A., have eliminated the risk of spoiled crops due to uncooperative weather conditions during curing time. "These barns are new, and they are climate controlled for heat and humidity…huge investments," Alejandro explains. "If you have enough heat or enough humidity, you turn off the systems, and that's it. In the old tobacco barns, you depended on the outside climate." That can be extremely tricky, and while seasoned growers can make adjustments to regulate conditions inside the barns to compensate for some fluctuations in weather, larger swings in humidity or temperature can create significant problems for the curing leaf-or ruin it entirely. The Italian-made equipment delivers consistent, even results (crucial for wrapper leaf where looks counts) in less time (22 days on average compared to 35 days traditionally). If it's good enough for Cuban factories, it puts San Andrès on cutting edge.
Speed, of course, isn't the issue. When it comes to leaf, patience is a virtue. In fact, time is one key advantage a larger operation like Turrent has in comparison with other smaller manufacturers. "We don't need to rush fermentation," says Alejandro. "The key to making a good cigar is the aging of the tobacco. There are many things that you could to rush the fermentation like adding rum or some juices from fruits. That's not good-you're taking away from the tobacco a lot of things that contribute the good tastes. But that's what some companies do. You have to invest on the tobacco. That's the key thing."
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Jorge Ortiz Alvarez, president of Mexico's second-largest cigar factory, Puros Santa Clara, S.A., delights in showing visitors the black and white portraits and map of San Andres dating from the turn of the last century that adorn the walls of the rolling gallery. The town center was full of cigar factories: none of them exist today, so it's with great pride that he continues a family tradition started by his great grandfather-once the main tobacco grower in the area who lost 90 percent of his land during the Mexican revolution in 1910. Ortiz opened his factory in 1967, and watched it burn to the ground in 1984. He rebuilt on the same spot, and is quick to point out that he does a number of things differently from other factories, both in Mexico and elsewhere.
For one, you'll find binder leaf aging inside wooden barrels. "In the old days every factory was using them; you put the binder here, and we age it very slowly," he says. Ortiz also devised a unique method for resting finished cigars before they leaving the factory: cedar boxes or cajas de reposa (aging cases), where cigars are sealed, by batch, for six months to allow the divergent tobaccos to "marry" and differing humidity levels in the leaves to equalize. Most factories accomplish this stem on open shelves. Like other prominent cigar makers in San Andres, quality control is crucial in building Mexican cigars' prestige in the market. Approximately 60 percent of his cigars are sold overseas, the rest in Mexico, puros includingAromas de San Andres, Santa Clara, Vera Cruz, Tabamex, and Playa de Carme. Santa Clara Special Edition uses Dominican Piloto Cubano, San Andres Morron, and a Connecticut wrapper while this new Santa Clara Diamond-launched this past fall-for the first time uses a blend of Nicaraguan and San Andres tobaccos, which he describes as "strong" for the Mexican market, but a little less than full-bodied as perceived the rest of the world.
Ortiz feels Mexican cigar makers have to do more to differentiate themselves from Cuba, and notes that unlike Nicaraguan, Honduran, and Dominican cigar makers, Mexican producers don't have family based in the U.S.A. to establish and promote their brands-a big difference in gaining visibility for their brands. His 260 employees include those working at his box factory which also produces humidors and humidor-grade cigar boxes for several of his better lines.
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The Rodriguez family has been growing tobacco since 1920, and established their Del Paraiso cigar brand in 1926. The smallest of the San Andres cigar makers that exports-principally to Poland and Germany-the company's production is equally small, and squarely focused on quality. Victor Rodriguez, the company's General Manager, began growing and processing tobacco and taught the rest of his family. They grow three kinds of tobacco-Sumatra, Negro San Andreas, and Habano-planting crops only once a year in March. They roll Mexican puros entirely from their own farm's tobaccos, focusing on small production with only eight rollers, but each is a master with 20 to 25 year's experience. They produce principally long fill cigars, but also handmade short fill, and also have five additional rollers working at hotels in major tourist areas, rolling cigars onsite. The company uses tobacco that it has fermented 6-8 months and aged for unusually long five to eight years-boldly asserting the cigars are comparable to any of the other big San Andres brands. There are 50 workers total, including the farm, located about 10 minutes from the serene factory in town. Victor's sons, Victor Rodriguez Jr. and Francisco Rodriguez, handle the company's marketing.
Collectively raising the quality and prestige of Mexican cigars has been an ongoing goal of the country's premier manufacturers for years-a task that has paid dividends along the way and continues to present to opportunities for improvements in the future. Mexico-like all other producers during the mid-1990s cigar boom-watched helpless as an initially desireable growth in tobacco farming and cigar rolling because to explode and quality across the board suffered. Those years are well in the past, and just like Mexico's market competitors of Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic, supply and demand are back in check, and tobacco quality has moved into a "golden age" of supply: plenty of properly fermented and well-aged leaf appearing in well-crafted blends. As Mexico's top cigar makers continue to put tobaccos and blends at center stage, cigar enthusiasts will find plenty of opportunities to delight in the modern Mexican cigar. Enditem
