A Short History of the Cigar

Every cigar you light carries a long story. Tobacco was being grown and smoked in the Americas for centuries before any European saw it, and the path from there to a Tulsa humidor runs through some of the most interesting places in the world.

Where it started

Native peoples across the Caribbean and Mesoamerica grew tobacco and smoked it rolled in leaves long before 1492. The Maya used tobacco in ceremony and medicine, and the Taíno people of the Caribbean smoked it as well. When Columbus's crew landed in Cuba in 1492, members of the expedition saw people smoking rolled tobacco, one of the first European accounts of the practice.

Europe catches on

Spanish sailors brought tobacco home, and over the next two centuries it spread across Europe. Spain became the center of the early cigar trade, and the city of Seville built large royal tobacco factories to process leaf from the colonies. Over time, though, people came to agree that the best cigars were rolled where the best tobacco grew, and that meant Cuba.

The rise of Havana

By the 1800s Havana was the capital of the cigar world. Factories there built brands, many of which still exist, and paper bands and decorated boxes became a way to tell one maker from another. The phrase "Havana cigar" became shorthand for the finest smoke money could buy.

Cigars in America

Cigar making grew in the United States through the 1800s, and much of it was done by Cuban and Spanish immigrants. Key West had a large industry, and in 1886 Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his factory to Tampa, where Ybor City grew into one of the largest cigar-making centers in the world. At its peak, Tampa's factories turned out hundreds of millions of hand-rolled cigars a year.

The embargo changes everything

After the Cuban revolution, the United States placed an embargo on Cuban goods in 1962, and Cuban cigars disappeared from American shelves. Many cigar-making families had already left Cuba, and they took their seeds and skills to the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Those countries became the heart of the premium cigar industry that Americans smoke today.

The boom and today

Cigars had a huge revival in the 1990s, when demand soared and lounges opened across the country. The boom settled down, but it left behind a large community of serious smokers and a new generation of boutique makers. Today the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua lead the world in premium cigar exports, with Honduras close behind, and towns like Estelí in Nicaragua are as important to cigar lovers as Havana once was.

That history shows up in Tulsa's humidors every day, in Cuban-seed wrappers, Dominican blends, and Nicaraguan ligero. For a local twist, Ultimo Cigars rolls its own cigars right here in Tulsa.