News — Cigar Articles

Being an avid pipe smoker gives you the chance to relax and contemplate after a hard day with a nice calming ritual. Pipe tobacco comes in many pleasant flavors and corresponding aromas that can make your home or office smell very pleasing to an avid pipe smoker. Smoking a pipe also gives you the chance to collect their favorite style of pipes to fit their background and personality. The avid pipe smoker thinks of their pipe as a talisman, even going so far as to have their old standby pipe along with others used for special occasions. A pipe can...

A Number of Owners The Punch brand was first registered in 1840 by a German man named Stockmann, who decided to name the brand after the European puppet show character Mr. Punch. The brand originated in Cuba, and it was specifically marketed for the English market. The history behind this famous brand also featured a number of ownership changes. The first change of ownership came in 1874 when Luis Corujo purchased the brand. Another change came about in 1884 by Manuel López Fernandez. After a few other ownership switches, and after the stock market crash in 1929, this Cuban cigar...

Unique Packaging The Dutch Masters brand of naturally wrapped cigars began being sold in the United States back in 1911. The brand is known by many due to its unique packaging that features Rembrandt’s 1662 painting known as The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild (De Staalmeesters). The men in the painting are known as drapers, and they were elected to determine the quality of cloth that weavers offered for sale to members of their association. There were four grades of quality, and a cloth’s quality was shown by the number of seals pressed into it. Four seals was the highest...

Back in the days of clay and corn cob pipes; all that smokers really wanted was for their tobacco to stay alight so they could continue sucking in smoke (blowing it out into the faces of others wasn’t considered anti-social back then; let alone harmful to the health of the so called “passive smoker”). However, pipe smoking habits and social mores have changed somewhat since then. A Pipe Is Both A Prized Possession and an Indicator Of The Smoker’s Character I’m probably generalizing; but, it seems to me that today’s pipe smokers are somewhat introverted, solitary, intellectual types who like...

At first glance, the history of Tabacalera Oliva Tabolisa  (known, here in the States as the Oliva Cigar Co.) appears fairly mundane. One Melanio Oliva grew tobacco and founded the company in Cuba in 1886; the company is still family owned; but, has moved its headquarters to Miami Lakes, Florida. It is what happened to Oliva Cigars in between that reflects on politics. Aftermath of Revolutions After Castro’s Cuban revolution in 1959, Gilberto Oliva (the founder’s grandson) emigrated to Spain (taking the family with him). Without his Cuban farms; Gilberto continued to work with tobacco but as a broker –...