TOB Magazine

Avanti Cigar Company’s history dates back more than 100 years to when the

founders of the company wanted to capitalize on their love for Italian cigars.

Dominic, Anthony and Frank Suraci—three brothers who emigrated from

Calabria, Italy, to New York—started their own hand-rolled cigar company, the

Suraci Brother Co., in 1912 with the intent to target New York’s growing Italian-

American population.

By 1925, business was going so well that the Suraci brothers were able to

purchase a competing family’s factory and products, giving them a primary

brand: Parodi. After World War II, they bought out another competitor, Long

Island’s DeNobili Cigar Company. In 1963, the purchase of Petri Cigar gave the

company firm control over the Italian-style cigar market in the U.S. In the 1970s,

the company began to manufacture cigars featuring fermented Kentucky tobacco

and an anisette-flavored tip. This cigar became the company’s most highly rated

and best-selling brand, leading to reorganization of Parodi Cigar Group and it

ultimately becoming the Avanti Cigar Company.

In 2015, Avanti Cigar Company was purchased by Manifatture Sigaro Toscano,

the company that produces the historical Italian product the TOSCANO cigar

that inspired the Suraci brothers during the company’s founding in the early 1900s.

An American Dream

Avanti Cigar Company strives to provide the market

with premium products at affordable prices that

maintain the company’s Italian roots.

BY ANTOINE REID