For those of you who were unable to attend this year's
ProCigar Festival in Santiago, Dominican Republic… I sincerely hope you'll mark your calendar for next year! What an incredible event! This was the second annual festival, filled day and night with amazing tours of tobacco fields, cigar factories, golf tournaments, and other incredible festivities. Although it was exhausting, it was even more exhilarating to be surrounded by so many people sharing the same simple passion… cigars.
While in Santiago, I was fortunate enough to catch up with a lot of folks I don't get to see very often except at events like these. The first events took place in La Romana with a Golf Tournament and tours of Tabacalera de Garcia, makers of the famous Romeo y Julieta and Montecristo brands. Although I wasn't able to participate in this portion of the festival, I did get to meet up with their Master Blender, Jose Seijas during one of the evening events. His
Jose Seijas Signature cigar has always been a favorite of mine.
We all arrived on Tuesday and made our way up to our hotel,
Camp David Ranch, where we relaxed, smoked cigars, and prepared ourselves for the week's upcoming festivities. Thank you to Nicole Bermudez and the entire staff for everything! It was first class as always!
On our first
official day we visited MATASA. Owned by Mr. Manuel Quesada, his close-knit family operation is impressive to say the least. His "young ones", as he calls them, did a wonderful job of leading our group around the factory. Of course, touring the factory is always better when you can smoke the product while watching them make it, so
Fonseca Cigars were lit by all first. Many thanks to Raquel, Patricia, Esther, Hostos and Jose Manuel!
Day two our group took a trip to the country's capital, Santo Domingo, to visit the factory that produces Presidente Beer.
It just so happens that Presidente is owned by the Leon Family, owners of
La Aurora (The Dominican's oldest cigar factory). After the remarkable tour of their facilities, we were forced to do some "product sampling" of both the regular Presidente and the Presidente Light. It was tough work, but we were certainly happy to do our part. We even worked overtime and sampled Presidente on the bus ride all the way back to Santiago!
Day three we headed out to Jicomé to see some fields of
Davidoff. After looking at the crop and watching the workers pick tobacco and hang it in the curing barn, we headed back to our processing facility to look at seed development, tobacco processing, sorting, and fermentation. Hendrik "Henke" Kelner, our Master Blender, Manuel Peralta our chief agronomist, and Kelner's son, Hendrik Jr, led the group. After a great lunch we traveled to Villa Gonzalez to experience some final wrapper
and binder preparation as well as watch the actual production of
Davidoff Cigars and the
Winston Churchill brand. I snuck away from the group just long enough to enjoy an espresso and a cigar with Eladio Diaz (Henke's right hand). It turns out the cigar I enjoyed was a special cigar that used eight different tobaccos. Although it will not be made as a production cigar, it was a real treat to be able to taste it and talk with Eladio about it!
Although we did not make it to General Cigar Company's facility this year, we visited their factory last year, and still had the opportunity to smoke many of their cigars during the festivities. The final night's gala and charity auction raised $80,000 for two very special Dominican Charities! It was truly a magnificent event and I look forward to more of you joining me for next year's festival!!!
and to do so we'll host a special dinner as always! This year's event will be Monday, March 16 at the Davidoff store on Madison Avenue. The dinner will be prepared by our good friends at Rothmann's Steakhouse. Each attendee will enjoy: