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TOBACCO BUSINESS
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JULY
/
AUGUST
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17 ]
With Edgar
Cullman’s
blessing,
Ramón set
forth the
exacting
standards
required for
Macanudo
cigars,
and these
methods are
still in play
today.
selling tobacco. Feeling that he wasn’t learning the busi-
ness enough by selling tobacco, Mayer set off for Cuba in
1952 to learn everything there was to know about mak-
ing cigars by working nonstop, to the point of having
open sores on his hands from moving bales. His deter-
mination ultimately paid off, when he later rose through
the ranks at General Cigar to become the company’s
head tobacco buyer.
Mayer’s extensive tobacco knowledge led Edgar
Cullman to charge him with leading blend develop-
ment for Macanudo. Edgar Cullman wanted a cigar
with an aged wrapper—something none of the other
cigar markers were doing at that time—andMayer deli-
vered the goods.
With access to tobacco from all over the world, Mayer
selected Dominican, Jamaican and Mexican tobacco for
the Macanudo blend. He crowned it with a special Con-
necticut wrapper cultivated, harvested and processed
by General Cigar’s Culbro division. The wrapper was
aged three years, had a subtly sweet flavor and instantly
appealed to American cigar smokers.
An Icon is Born…
Once the blend was firmly established, Edgar Cullman
set his sights on quality and consistency, turning to leg-
endary Cuban Cigarmaster Ramón Cifuentes. Cifuent-
es owned Partagas cigars in the pre-Fidel Castro heyday
and had been working for the Cullmans since his exo-
dus from Cuba. Cifuentes had a reputation for meticu-
lous attention to detail and was not shy about his rabid
devotion to flawless construction. With Edgar Cull-
man’s blessing, Ramón set forth the exacting standards
required for Macanudo cigars, and these methods are
still in play today.
With the blend and its standards set in stone, General
Cigar began selling Macanudo in 1971, focusing distri-
bution on the best restaurants in the country. The cigars
sold extremely well and a market for Macanudo was
born. Impactful advertising platforms also started in the
1970s, with magazine, newspaper and radio ads promot-
ing Macanudo as “the ultimate cigar.” Soon, new sizes
were added to the Macanudo Café line, and the brand
continued its rapid ascent.
As the brand was evolving, Edgar Cullman expanded
his team. In the 1970s, he saw great promise in Daniel
Nuñez, a young graduate of Texas A&M University
who was developing tobacco for the government of the
Dominican Republic.
When Cullman met Nuñez in 1974, the two bonded
almost instantly.
Cullman was anxious to experiment with
growing Connecticut Shade in the Dominican Republic.
Seeing enormous potential, he hired
Nuñez
that year.
From 1993 until 1999,
Nuñez
spent one week per
month at General Cigar’s Jamaican factory where he
and another idol of the handmade cigar business, Benji
Menendez, worked together to uphold the utmost qual-
ity of Macanudo.
In 1988, Edgar Cullman introduced
Nuñez
to Ramón
Cifuentes. Nearing retirement, Cifuentes devoted count-
less hours to teaching
Nuñez
everything he knew about
cigar making. Cifuentes selflessly gave
Nuñez
six months
of his time, six days a week, teaching him exactly what a
Macanudo should be.
Nuñez
spent the next several years
concentrating on Macanudo and releasing a succession
of well-received blends.
Just as Edgar Cullman, Ramón Cifuentes and Alfons
Mayer devoted their time to mentoring the next generation
of cigar makers, Daniel Nuñez devoted himself to training
the team that stands behind the success of Macanudo
today. In 1998, after decades in the business, Nuñez
identified his protégé in Jhonys Diaz. An American-
educated Dominican, with an incredible attention to
detail and a passion for learning, it can be said that Diaz
mirrored a young Nuñez. Through Nuñez, Cifuentes’
relentless devotion to quality would be at the heart of
everything Diaz would learn. Nuñez also instilled in Diaz
the intricacies of blending based on his own and Mayer’s
expertise. Perhaps above all, Diaz would become a student
of the leaf, soaking up Nuñez’s encyclopedic knowledge of
tobacco and developing a fluency in the art of processing
tobacco and crafting the world’s finest cigars.
Macanudo continues to be made at General Cigar’s
factory in Santiago, Dominican Republic, by a team still
consisting of those hand-picked by Nuñez to succeed
him in the business. Led by Diaz, the artisans who work
hand-in-hand with him still maintain a laser focus on up-
holding Macanudo’s high standards of quality, set forth
by the pioneers of the handmade cigar business.
General Cigar
Continued