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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
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Ernesto Padilla is no stranger to government adversity,
which gives him and his boutique cigar company a unique
perspective in these FDA-worrisome times.
It was the death of his father in 2000 that brought life to
the Padilla Cigar Company in 2003. While it’s common for
small-batch stogie businesses to be backed by family tobac-
co roots, this one was built on a foundation of an extraordi-
nary family history, soaked in romance and revolution. And
yes, cigars were in the picture—literally.
“When he was arrested, the photographs in
Time
and
such always showed him with a cigar; cigars and he were
never far away, so it was a big part of his growing up and
his culture,” recounts Padilla, owner and founder of Padil-
la Cigar Co
mpany
, speaking about his Cuban-poet father,
Herberto Padilla, who was imprisoned by the Fidel Castro
regime in 1971 for speaking out
and
writing against the
government. Herberto Padilla is often written about as Cu-
ba’s “foremost modern poet.”
In 1979, when Ernesto was six years old, he and his
mother, also a Cuban poet and artist, were allowed to leave
their country for the U.S.; his father was not allowed to join
them until a year later when he was exiled.
During the many years that Herberto was held captive
and later put under house arrest by the Cuban government,
many friends and intellectuals wrote to Castro to release
him. One of these was Ernest Hemingway, who Ernesto
Padilla was named after by the creative parents who always
encouraged him to follow an artistic soul.
Padilla started his career in the advertising world but was
more fascinated with cigars and their history, much like his
father was decades earlier. When his father passed, it was
a natural transition for Ernesto to veer off into cigars as
his business, creating a family brand in honor of his father
(Ernesto’s brother, Carlos Padilla, is a silent partner in the
Miami-based company).
Padilla Cigar Company named its first four cigars after
significant dates in Herberto’s history. For example, The
Signature 1932 was in honor of the year he was born
,
the
Padilla Series ’68 (now discontinued) marked the year he
published his first book. The newest cigar, the 85
th
Anniver-
sary, was released before the August 8 deeming regulation
deadline last year and is in honor of what would have been
Herberto’s 85
th
birthday.
Padilla Cigar Company entered into a brave new FDA
world with “eight cigar products grandfathered in,” some-
thing Padilla believes will carry them to survival, based on
the way the rules are written now, and on expert legal coun-
sel hired by the company. “It looks like grandfathered prod
Backed by Romance and
Revolution
Named after Ernest Hemingway and influenced by a Cuban-poet father who was
imprisoned by Castro, Ernesto Padilla brings heart and soul to a boutique cigar
company that has every intention of surviving FDA intervention.
BY RENÉE COVINO
CIGAR SENSE
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PREMIUM
CIGARS