History of the Newest Cuban Cigar Brands

Many sources – particularly those tied to the United States – portray the nationalisation of Cuban businesses in the early 1960s as simple theft, but the reality was much more nuanced. Many businesses in Cuba in the 1950s were owned by foreign nationals or corporations, and some, like hotels and casinos, were owned by gangsters and mafia figures. Much of the elite class of Cuba at that time identified more as Spanish or American than they did Cuban.

The nationalisation of businesses in Cuba took place gradually over several years. Some were confiscated as proceeds of crime. Others, such as those held by US corporations, were compulsorily acquired, with compensation based on a calculation such as US imports from Cuba over the next 30 years (which would turn out not to amount to much, given the US embargo of Cuba), or a value based on their previous year’s tax returns (to the great distress of those who had used creative accounting to minimise their tax bill). Many of Cuba’s elites had grown rich due to close association with the deposed Batista regime and seeing the writing on the wall fled the country, either abandoning their businesses, or else selling them for a fraction of their value. In some cases, these emigres forfeited compensation which could only be claimed in Cuba. Some businesses were never nationalised at all but were ordered closed for some labour violation.

The nationalised Cuban cigar industry was run by Cubatabaco, a communist state bureaucracy, which operated based on five-year plans, state mandated quotas, and the whims of political commissars. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Cuba lost its great financial benefactor, and entered a time of severe economic hardship knows as its Special Period. With a great need of fast cash, the state decided to modernise the soviet management style of Cubatabaco, and in 1994 Habanos S.A. was formed with a mandate to reform the Cuban cigar industry and bring the Cuban cigar into a capitalist world.

The most famous case of a dispute over a Cuban cigar trademark is the fight over Cohiba in the United States, but in fact, because of the varied way in which businesses were nationalised, the intervening decades had seen dozens of disputes over the ownership of Cuban brands fought in many different jurisdictions, with varying results. At the beginning of the 1990s, the situation was a complex mess, with a different selection of Cuban brands on sale in every market all over the world.

Among the priorities of Habanos was to sort out the mess with the brand availability. One of their strategies towards this goal was the creation of new brands that didn’t have the same encumbrances as the old ones.

The first fruit of this program was Cuaba, introduced in 1996. The brand is named with the word that Cuba’s indigenous inhabitants gave to the flaming torches that they used to light their tobacco. Cuaba’s differentiating feature is that its cigars are in the double figurado shaped - a traditional style that had been ubiquitous until the 1920s, but was usurped by the straight parejo style in the 1930s and was virtually extinct in the Cuban lines before the creation of Cuaba.

When first launched, Cuaba was positioned to sit alongside Cohiba as a higher-tier luxury brand, not least because its complicated double figurado cigars require the highest levels of roller to produce them. Many special edition cigars were created for the brand in its early years.

Despite this, the brand never achieved any major popularity with consumers and is now a very small part of Habanos’ portfolio.

The next new marca launched by Habanos S.A. was Trinidad. In a similar story to Cohiba, Trinidad had supposedly been created in 1969 as a private Cuban government brand and rolled at the El Laguito factory in small quantities.

The brand is named after a town in the Sancti Spíritus province that is UNESCO World Heritage listed as one of the best-preserved colonial towns in the Caribbean.

Trinidad first became public knowledge in 1992, when Cigar Aficionado Magazine toured the El Laguito factory and learned of the marca from the factory manager, Avelino Lara. Two years later, Marvin Shanken, the editor of Cigar Aficionado, hosted a dinner in Paris known as the Dinner of the Century, where a few boxes of Trinidads were auctioned – the first time the cigars were seen outside of diplomatic circles.

Taking advantage of the substantial buzz generated by Cigar Aficionado, Habanos launched Trinidad for general sale in 1997.

Trinidad today is considered a premium brand that sits below Cohiba but above the other brands. When the prices of Cuban cigars were increased globally in 2022, Trinidad’s prices (like Cohiba’s) were pegged to the Hong Kong price, more than doubling them in most markets. The brand has struggled since, with a few models like the Fundadores moving quickly, but many smaller cigars sitting on shelves all around the world. A substantial revamp of the brand seems likely in the near future.

Along with Trinidad, the Vegueros marca was also launched in 1997. This brand came about as a side effect of a project to elevate the Francisco Donatien factory in Pinar del Rio from a minor domestic only factory into a high-quality producer on par with the big factories in Havana. The first cigars released by the factory were the same Laguito sizes as the Cohiba brand – some of the most complex sizes to roll, demonstrating the proficiency of the new factory.

The brand is named for the Spanish term for tobacco farmers.

Unfortunately, this brand never found much traction, and in 2013 it was relaunched as a low-cost ‘volume’ brand, with all new sizes and branding. The high quality of the factory would remain, however, as it took over the main production of Trinidad in the early 2000s.

Another progeny of Francisco Donatien was the Vegas Robaina marca, also launched in 1997.

The brand is named after the plantation of Don Alejandro Robaina, who was a Cuban tobacco farmer with a multi-generational family farm in the Vuelta Abajo region. He became known as the best tobacco farmer in Cuba, thanks to his farm’s high yield of export-grade wrapper leaves — in most years two to three times that of his nearest rival. In the 1990s he became something of a celebrity, hosting many international visitors at his plantation, and travelled widely as an unofficial ambassador for the Cuban cigar industry. Don Alejandro died in 2010, and his grandson Hiroshi Robaina took over the farm.

From the brand’s launch until 2014, Vegas Robaina was a prestigious brand, with regular special releases and several popular cigars in production.

In 2014, Hiroshi lent his name to a Nicaraguan cigar producer, and left Cuba for a time to promote their cigars. The general design of the packaging of the Nicaraguan cigars bore considerable resemblance to that of Vegas Robaina.

Hiroshi Robaina returned to his family farm a few years later, but since 2014 no new Vegas Robaina cigars have been released, and its former flagship model, the Don Alejandro, has been discontinued. When the brand’s packaging was redesigned in 2022, the likeness of Don Alejandro was removed from the boxes.

Although the exact situation is not public knowledge, many speculate that a disagreement between Habanos S.A. and the Robaina family over the ownership of the name is likely the root of the brands apparent sidelining, an ironic outcome given the reasoning behind the brand’s origin.

San Cristóbal de La Habana is the most recent new brand out of Cuba, created in 1999. The marca takes its name from the historic name for the city of Havana, and cigars from the brand are generally named for landmarks around the city.

The brand saw the first releases of a La Casa del Habano exclusive cigar, in the Oficios, Mercaderes and Muralla, released in 2006. These were some of the first Cuban cigars to be packaged in high-end decorative boxes, a precursor to many modern LCDH exclusive releases.

The brand today is a minor brand, but does see the occasional special release, particularly in association with anniversaries like the 500th year since the founding of Havana in 2019.

In 2000, Altadis – a company formed from a merging of the French and Spanish state tobacco monopolies – purchased a 50% stake in Habanos S.A. They also acquired several other international tobacco companies around the same time, including some of those that held competing trademarks to Cuba’s traditional brands. This, along with the large cash injection, allowed Cuba to settle many of its trademark issues. Since then, no new brands have been created, and Cuban cigar marketing has refocused on its traditional marcas.