| Cigars manufactured in Cuba are considered by many to be the best, although many experts believe that the best offerings from Dominican Repubic, Honduras and Nicaragua rival those from Cuba. The Cuban Cigar reputation is thought to arise from the unique characteristics of the Vuelta Abajo district in the Pinar del Río Province at the west of the island, where the microclimate allows high-quality tobacco to be grown.
Cuban cigars are rolled from tobacco leaves found throughout the country of Cuba. The cigar filler, binder, and wrapper may come from different portions of the island. All Cuban cigar production in Cuba is controlled by the Cuban government, and each brand may be rolled in several different factories in Cuba. Cuban cigar rollers or "torcedores" are claimed to be the most skilled in the world. Torcedores are highly respected in Cuban society and culture and travel worldwide displaying their art of hand rolling cigars.
Habanos SA and Cubatabaco between them do all the work relating to Cuban cigars, including manufacture, quality control, promotion and distribution, and export. Cuba produces both handmade and machine made cigars. All boxes and labels are marked Hecho en Cuba (made in Cuba). Machine-bunched cigars finished by hand add Hecho a mano, while fully hand-made cigars say Totalmente a mano in script text. Some cigars show a TC or Tripa Corta, meaning that short filler and cuttings were used in the hand-rolling process.
United States embargo against Cuba
According to Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara "A smoke in times of rest is a great companion to the solitary soldier." The cigar became inextricably intertwined with U.S. political history on February 7, 1962, when United States President John F. Kennedy imposed a trade embargo on Cuba to sanction Fidel Castro's communist government. According to Pierre Salinger, then Kennedy's press secretary, the president ordered him on the evening of February 6 to obtain a thousand H. Upmann brand petit corona Cuban cigars; upon Salinger's arrival with the cigars the following morning, Kennedy signed the executive order which put the embargo into effect.
The embargo prohibited US residents from legally purchasing Cuban-cigars on the market, and Cuba was deprived of its major customer for tobacco.
In the United States, authentic Cuban-made cigars are widely considered to be "the best smoking experience" of all cigars and are seen as "forbidden fruit" for Americans to purchase. Many former Cuban cigar manufacturers moved to other countries, and the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua continue to manufacture cigars.
It remains illegal for US residents to purchase or import Cuban cigars regardless of where they are in the world, although they are readily available across the northern border in Canada, and small quantities can in practice be brought back without trouble from US Customs if the bands are removed prior to crossing. While Cuban cigars are smuggled into the USA and sold at high prices, counterfeiting is rife; it has been said that 95% of Cuban cigars sold in the USA are counterfeit. Although Cuban cigars cannot legally be imported into the USA, the advent of the Internet has made it much easier for people in the United States to purchase cigars online from other countries.
For more general cigar information please visit Wikipedia.org
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