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ANCESTRAL (PRE-CASTRO) CUBAN SEEDS
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A HERITAGE LOST
Premium cigar lovers know Fidel Castro seized all Cuban tobacco
farms and cigar factories in the early 1960s, and drove the
renowned Cuban cigar families to refuge in other countries. What
is little known, however, is how he brought the island's Golden
Age of Cigars to an end. |
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Cuba looked to Russia to save the
island's economy by importing Cuba's agricultural products. But,
Russia wanted sugar, not cigars. Castro disbanded Cuban Land,
the island's leading tobacco research institute and others, and
diverted tobacco farmers and agronomists into sugar production.
The no-longer-needed seed banks and extensive records of soil
and nutrients simply disappeared. Tobacco farms and factories
that produced the legendary marques, once the pride of the
families who owned them, fell into the hands of collectives,
under management of the communist bureaucracy. Most of the
world's most respected Grade 7 cigar rollers fled the regime.
Many followed the cigar families to the Caribbean and Central
America, while others opened tiny workshops and showrooms in
Miami, Tampa, New Jersey, and other US cities, where they rolled
their own cigars and sold them to the local Latin market. They
were replaced by inexperienced youths, eager to have any job.
This aborted 300 years of patient, meticulous seed development
hat made pre-Castro Cuban cigars the envy of the world. The
island had now lost its precious soil, the seeds that carried
the genetic blueprints, the records, the talent of the tobacco
and cigar families, and most veteran rollers. Cuba forgot how
to make cigars. |
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As reward and initiative sank, so
did quality ... even Zino Davidoff, the renowned Geneva
tobacconist and Havana loyalist for decades, abandoned Cuba and
moved to Dominican cigars.
Possibly most devastating, the magic of "ancestral" Cuban seed
was lost ... or was it? |
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ONLY THE VETERANS REMEMBER
Russia abandoned Cuba, leaving Castro to realize he had
forfeited the international prestige and market dominance his
cigars had once enjoyed. Sugar-tainted land now grew inferior
tobacco, curing and fermenting cycles were shortened to meet
demand, and inexperienced cigar
rollers met Castro's rushed production schedules with
poorly-made product. Smokers who knew the joy of the true,
pre-Castro puro wept at what now came out of Havana.
America's cigar boom of the 90s awakened young smokers to
premium cigars. Virtually none knew the flavor and aroma of a
true Havana. These cigar buffs, enticed by the "forbidden
fruit," pay exorbitant prices for illegal Cuban cigars by the
millions ... more than half of which are fakes, according to US
Customs. Why should Castro expend the effort and expense to
improve quality, when buyers are willing to pay $20 for cigars
that cost his regime 20 cents? |
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FORWARD TO THE
PAST
My name is
John Vogel, the director of Tabacos de la Cordillera
("Cigars of the Mountain Range"), both on our
natural farm and in our
factory. I am a graduate agronomical engineer,
specializing in genetic engineering, dedicating my entire
40-year career to tobacco and cigars. I was a project leader
in the Research and Development Department at the world's
largest cigar manufacturer for 20 years, working in every
area of their operations. My specialty was the development
and improvement of genetically superior seed strains,
knowing that, "Quality all stands on the worth of the seed."
During my consulting career, I collected a cache of
genetically pure seeds ... 47 varieties in all. These seeds
are the foundation for our present crops. These
almost-forgotten pre-Castro seeds exist nowhere else in the
world.
This is not a tale of smuggling seeds out of Cuba in a
hollowed-out heel of a shoe. The acquisition of this rare
genetical material occurred because of my work and travels
worldwide. I met and formed associations with many leaders
in the research field of tobacco ... industry-respected
Habano leaf producers and genetical scientists. They
included geneticists working for Cuban Land, the
agricultural research institution that operated in Cuba
until Castro disbanded it. |
Selecting an envelope of Cuban Habano Corojo 1951 seeds for
planting, from our exclusive seed bank of 47 genetically
pure pre-Castro strains |
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The specimens were virtually all of
Cuban lineage, most of them are directly from the island. Others
are Cuban-seed tobacco, grown in other countries ... genuine
African Cameroon and the original Dominican Olor. Some have
slept peacefully for sixty years ... long before Castro's
regime. One strain was the tobacco in not only Castro's personal
cigars, but also 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 entire
world of cigars. My years in the industry also give me the rare
advantage of having sampled countless pre-Castro Havanas ... I
know how they should taste! |
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SETTING THE CLOCK BACK
My specialty and expertise lie in genetic improvement. By
creating the strains, growing and processing the leaf, and
managing the factory, we control everything from seed to
smoke. On the
Our Cigars page, you will see some of the proprietary
... and treasured ...
genuine Cuban-seed tobaccos that make our cigars so
spectacular.With so many cigar makers touting "Cuban"
taste, Tabacos de la Cordillera offers what no others can.
We set the clock back 50 years, with the sumptuous flavor
and tantalizing bouquet of authentic Havanas, grown
from ancestral (pre-Castro) seed. Moreover, you can enjoy
them at prices that reflect a day that cigar connoisseurs
thought was long gone.
Cigars from Tabacos de la Cordillera are indeed the new
world standard for premium cigars! |
Director
and genetics engineer John Vogel weighs out pre-Castro Cuban
seed, prior to planting in hothouse germination beds |
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