In 1916, Don Santiago Toraño departed his native Spain for Cuba, intent on growing the world’s finest tobacco. Since then, the fourth-generation, internationally-respected Toraño family has been passionately committed to dark tobacco, and appears poised to become the industry’s next dynasty.

Carlos Toraño is chairman of the board of Toraño Cigars, having been succeeded as president by his son Charlie. Carlos knows little of his grandfather Santiago. But, he remembers much of his father Carlos, while admitting, “I mainly spent weekends and holidays with him, because he was so busy with his seventeen farms throughout the island. His customers included legendary names like Ramon Cifuentes (Partagas) the Menendez family (H. Upmann), and the Plasencias.
“Few shared his passion,” continues Carlos. “He worked ceaselessly ... daytime in the fields, in the sheds at night, loving every minute.”

In 1958, the Cuba buzzed with rumors of revolution. Carlos recalls the morning of New Year’s Day, 1959 ... he was fourteen ... when a phone call came ... Castro had succeeded; Batista had fled Cuba.

“Immediately, Castro began seizing the island’s cigar factories and tobacco farms. In late 1959, my father was at his farm ‘Esperanza’ (Hope), when a truckload of militia men stopped at the gate. They announced the government was seizing it and his other farms in the area. My father realized his tobacco business in Cuba was lost. In 1963, he fled Cuba in with his wife and children to the United States, as refugees.”

There, Carlos, Sr., capitalized his close relationship with his brother-in-law Ramón Cifuentes, likewise exiled and working for General Cigar Company. Aware of Toraño’s reputation as one of the best Cuban growers, General hired him as an agricultural specialist. Though the relationship was mutually beneficial, he dreamed of his own business again. His exiled brother Jaime, also working at General, likewise left o to grow tobacco in Nicaragua. They felt the soil and growing conditions in both countries would produce more authentic Cuban-style tobacco than native strains. Carlos, Sr., preceded the Fuente family by twenty-five years, successfully growing piloto-Cubano wrapper leaf in the Dominican Republic.

“In Miami, Florida,” continues Carlos, “I graduated in 1964 with a degree in economics and finance. Although my father wanted me to carry on his legacy, I was more interested in the new world of modern business and technology than the old world of tobacco.”

Carlos, Sr., strove to prove Dominican tobacco surpassed that of Cuba, to become the world’s standard. Sadly, in 1970, he died from a massive heart attack, on the floor of his curing barn, at age 57. His beloved Dominican Republic now outproduces Cuba, but not before his passion for tobacco consumed him. “When my father died,” says Carlos, “everything he had built in the Dominican Republic died with him.

“My uncle Jaime formed and operated Toraño & Company in Nicaragua, in partnership with the tobacco-producing Pérez family. He said, ‘We have a very successful tobacco business here, but my sons aren’t following in my footsteps. I don’t want my efforts to come to nothing, as did your father’s.’ In 1974, when Jaime also died, his son Jimmy did take his place. Jimmy soon began imploring me in the name of the family, to carry on the business, now in its third generation.” In 1974, Carlos joined Toraño & Company. Carlos and Jimmy focused on the business side, while the Pérez family managed the farming operations. Carlos soon realized his lifelong friend Alfredo Pérez was also a master tobacco farmer, and began twenty years of learning all aspects of tobacco production, under Alfredo’s tutelage. “Everything I learned,” says Carlos, “everything I am today, I owe to Alfredo. I am grateful to for what he has taught me.”

“From 1974 to 1979, Nicaragua was producing the world’s best Cuban-style tobacco ... surpassing the DR, Honduras, Mexico, and Costa Rica ... largely because most of the attraction of its growing conditions to expatriated Cuban growers. Our primary customers were the Newman family, Swisher International, General Cigar, Consolidated Cigar, and Villazon.

“In 1979,” says Carlos, “our world was shaken once again. The Sandinista uprising prompted the US government’s embargo on all Nicaraguan goods. After 13 years from the time my uncle Jaime started there, we were out of business again.

“Our customers depended on us, and we decided to protect them and ourselves. In 1981, we began farming in Costa Rica, Mexico, Ecuador, and, once again, the DR.” Carlos relied on Alfredo’s teaching, to create companies, buy land, build sheds and factories, hire managers and workers, and oversee operations in these countries.

By 1992, Carlos began to see a future in cigar sales, as suggested by Alfredo years earlier, and moved exclusively into cigar brokering. Soon, his contacts worldwide bore fruit. He sold staggering numbers of cigars, aided by the mid-1990s U.S. cigar Renaissance. But by 1997, Carlos saw the market become flooded with cigar overproduction, followed by factory closures. His son Charlie had left his practice as an attorney to join him, and they decided to control their quality by operating their own factories, making cigars under the Toraño name. “Let’s not worry about making millions of cigars,” Carlos said, “but rather, let’s make superlative cigars. My experience tells me we’ll succeed if we do things right, making cigars not just with quality, but with value ... quality at a reasonable price.” So, in 1998, in the face of a collapsing market, the first Toraño-owned factory opened, in Danli, Honduras. Since 1990, Carlos had known Fidel Olivas, a capable, motivated manager and Tabacalero with twenty years experience. Carlos invited Olivas to be his manager and partner. Their first factory, a small, crammed building, was soon replaced by a 40,000 square-foot factory. Carlos laughs when he recounts how they bought it from former owner Tabacalera, S.A. (now Altadis, S.A.) ... “right after they completely renovated it.” The Olivas began managing all operations at the Danli factory, as well as a second factory the team bought in Esteli, Nicaragua. Both Toraños credit the Olivas family’s expertise and dedication with much of their success.

Today, the Toraños have much to smile about. Worldwide, over 1,000 Toraño retailers proudly display their cigars. Production of Toraño and private label brands from both factories in 2008 totaled 20 million cigars. The company has enjoyed many successes and accomplishments, including taking a place of honor at the table of Spain’s King Carlos. Toraño cigar lines commemorate Don Santiago (1916 Cameroon), their exile (Exodus 1959 and Exodus Silver Edition), the family’s personal cigar (Casa Toraño), the Noventa (their 90th anniversary), and Tribute 2008 (honoring the exiled families). Astronomical ratings, one after another, plus international awards, are the rule for all these, plus their Signature Collection and Reserva Selecta lines. Moreover, Toraño makes cigars for some of the most renowned brands, including CAO International, Alfred Dunhill, Gurkha, and J.C. Newman. They likewise have earned many 90+ percentile ratings in the cigar media.

2008 brought epochal changes to the Toraños. In January, the family signed an agreement with their prime customer, CAO, taking advantage of CAO’s marketing horsepower. CAO now has the exclusive U.S. sales and distribution rights for all Toraño brand cigars, and has hired Bruce Lewis as brand manager for the Toraño cigar lines.

Then, in December, 2008, the Toraños and Olivas sold their Danli and Esteli factories to Scandinavian Tobacco Group, one of the world’s largest cigar manufacturers. STG makes Henri Wintermanns and Europe’s top-selling Café Crème cigars, among other leading brands. Although STG produced 1.7 billion machine-made cigars last year, this is their first entry into making handmade premium cigars. The Olivas family continues to manage the two factories. Charlie Toraño explains, “STG’s enormous manufacturing strength and financial depth enables us to buy large stores of leaf, to meet spiraling demand and to ensure consistency from year to year.”

Toraño’s fresh, new Web site, www.torano.com, is now operational, with exciting new additions. It is interactive, with videos, blogs and forums. Its “Toraño Insider,” section is for subscribers who want to keep abreast of happenings and enjoy periodic benefits.

This Summer’s major U.S. trade show (ICPCR), will feature the long-awaited cigar to commemorate the half-century exile of the tobacco families. It is called “Exodus 50 Years,” and spotlights the reappearance of the old Cuban “Salomon” shape, a commanding but graceful 7-1/4" x 57 figurado. The Toraños surprised the cigar world by offering a pre-production version of it in their Exodus Seleccion Exclusiva Sampler. It was dressed out in a stark, plain white paper band, with a handwritten “Liga 3-H” blend identifier ... the way factories band trial cigars. Smokers responded “most enthusiastically,” reports Charlie, “to being able to sample what became the final Exodus 50 Years blend.”

Concludes Carlos, “Yes, I wish I had spent more time with my father, joining him in the business. Thirty-five years after his death, I still meet people who say, ‘I worked with your father, and he was one of the few who brought more to the Dominican Republic than they took from it.’” But, the contributions of Carlos, Sr., and his father Don Santiago, live on as bulwarks of the Toraño family’s emerging eminence in our world of cigars.

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