Photos Credit: Florida Sun Grown, J.C. Newman, El Titan de Bronze

It all started with a series of convenient truths and a booming interest in premium hand-rolled cigars. A time when buying "American-made" wasn't just a statement of support; it was the most readily available and affordable option. For once upon a time, the great state of Florida was one of the largest producers of cigars in the world behind Cuba, and for almost half a century, the Sunshine State basked in the glory of a booming tobacco business.

However, a series of economic and political catastrophes, accompanied by a prolonged period of public disinterest in premium cigars, has all but ruined Florida's once thriving tobacco business. What was once considered an industrial leader within the cigar industry has been turned into little more than a shell of its former self, even though the remnants of once was still stand.

 Yet, even then, there are still success stories that deserve to be told. Underdogs that held fast against all odds, or merely arrived late on the scene and have made a name for themselves in the shadows of a once mighty tobacco empire. This is the story of the rise, fall, and revival of Florida-grown and rolled cigars, and the people that have kept the state's rich tobacco history alive...

Want to Try a Cigar Made in Florida or One Made with Florida-Grown Tobacco? Check Out These Three Blends

"Partagas de Bronce"

La Palina "Mr. Sam"

Drew Estate "20 Acre Farm"

The Glory Days of Florida Grown Tobacco & Hand-Rolled Cigars

For tobacco producers, Florida was a total no-brainer when it came to planting crops. Thanks to its close proximity to Cuba, the southern state's climate provided strikingly similar tobacco-growing environments to those of the Crocodile-shaped island just south of it. Being that it happened to be a peninsula, the state also had easy access to both the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States, as well as the Gulf and its river tributaries, which all lead to America's heartland.

This proved to be an ideal situation for cigar manufacturers, because even if they couldn't get local leaf, it was always readily available via import thanks to fresh shipments coming in from Cuba and other tobacco-growing islands nearby. Once rolled, cigars could then be easily shipped out to any area in the United States via boat or rail, and with a steady flux of farmhands and factory workers showing interest in the booming stogie biz, supply and demand were keeping everyone extremely busy.

Come the late 1800s, cigars had become North America’s favorite tobacco product, followed shortly thereafter by pipe tobacco. Machine-rolled cigarettes may have been in production, but they were still decades away from reaching the masses, so what was available at the time was either produced in finite amounts or hand-rolled cowboy style. But whereas Kentucky, the Virginias, Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and the top growing regions in Connecticut produced a vast amount of wrapper, binder, and filler tobacco, it was in Florida where many of the Cuban-seed strains were grown.

According to historical reports on the subject, Florida was responsible for growing a vast amount of the cigar industry's tobacco for the better part of 175 years. In its heyday, the state was once considered the second-largest producer of premium cigar tobacco in North America behind Connecticut, with thousands of acres being dedicated to the crop in the northern Tallahassee area alone. 

Then, in the 1890s, Cuba began to seek its independence from Spain. To escape the conflict and the economic uncertainty associated with the blockade that had been placed on Havana's harbor, Cuban tobacco growers began to look elsewhere, and before long, large tobacco farms in the Fort Mead area began to appear. 

This leads us to the topic of cigar manufacturers in Florida, which, at one point, were in the hundreds. While Miami and its surrounding areas certainly had a healthy number of cigar factories, both big and small, it was actually Key West that was the big producer of cigars for much of the 1800s. But when the tiny town of Tampa became the new hot spot for rolling cigars in the late 1800s, Florida became an even larger tobacco juggernaut.

Within just a couple of decades, the town of 1,000 grew into a cigar-rolling metropolis, with over 200+ cigar factories in the Ybor City area alone producing an estimated 500 million handmade cigars a year at its peak. Over the course of the next few decades, Tampa would make a name for itself as the cigar-producing capital of the United States, with a massive amount of the tobacco that it rolled being grown right there in the state of Florida.

Tobacco Nerd Note: Havana, Florida, was given its name purely out of deception and greed. The naming of the town allowed bales of Florida-grown tobacco to receive a stamp saying that they had been grown in Havana, when in actuality, it was an American crop, and not imported Cuban tobacco. Naturally, tobacco brokers charged a premium for the product, with both cigar manufacturers and their consumers being completely unaware of the deceptive nature of the leaf inside each stick.

The Demise of Florida’s Cigar Industry

From a timeline viewpoint, long-filler cigars went from being an American mainstay to a rich person's novelty pursuit fairly quickly. All the way up through the Roaring Twenties, average Americans were interested in cigars, and the booming stogie industry made sure that everyone had ample access. 

But when sales suddenly began to crumble under the weight of The Great Depression, cigars struggled to retain their mass appeal. Like much of America, Florida found itself staggering under economic stagnancy, and with demand for basic living necessities superseding frivolous luxury items like premium cigars, the once-booming cigar business suddenly fell silent. 

By the end of the Depression, things weren't looking much better for the premium cigar industry. Machine-rolled cigarettes had finally caught up with the traditional hand-rolled cigar in regard to public popularity, and with doctors prescribing cigarettes as a stress medication, the shift toward cheap tobacco seemed imminent.  

From a practicality and cost viewpoint, cigarettes definitely seemed superior to cigars in the eyes of the smoking public. Cheaper, easier to smoke in one sitting, and prepped to pack and carry straight from the factory, cigarettes had selling points that cigars couldn't touch. By the time America had gotten into World War II, cigarettes had become a part of many a GI's standard rations, as they could be easily transported and traded, and quickly ditched without a care for the consequences if a firefight suddenly commenced. Readily available and just as equally disposable as ammunition, the popularity of cigarettes proved to be a death stroke for much of Florida's remaining hand-rolled cigar industry.

Factor in the cost of American labor being higher than that of what is found in foreign countries just south of the United States, and everything from the tobacco farms to the curing barns went up in smoke in just a few short decades. What resulted was the shuttering of hundreds of American cigar factories, the loss of countless jobs, and an unfathomable amount of lost revenue. Not just in Florida, or in Tampa or Miami, but in every other cigar-producing state and city across America.

Tobacco Nerd Note: By the time the 1900s rolled around, the neighborhood of Ybor City within Tampa was being referred to as "the cigar capital of the world." Subtropical weather, easy access to tobacco from Cuba and other Caribbean countries, a port with a direct line of sight to the mighty Mississippi River, as well as a plentiful supply of locally farmed filler tobacco, all made for a winning combination. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, during the height of Ybor City’s boom, an estimated “...10,000 cigar rollers worked in 200 cigar factories producing up to a half-billion hand-rolled cigars a year.” 

Fighting Extinction: Florida-Made Cigars of Today

Over the past 70+ years, the cigar production industry within the United States has continuously contracted, with Florida being the last holdout. Yes, companies like Padrón, Rocky Patel, PDR, Aladino, and Espinosa all have locations in Florida, but this is not where the bulk of their cigars are being rolled. Although a handful of small operations in Miami's Little Havana district still produce cigars in limited quantities, nowadays it is more of a tourist attraction than a major production hub. 

That said, there is one facility in Little Havana that rolls a sizable sum of premium cigar blends annually, some of which have earned impressive reviews from cigar publications and us here at Klaro. The shop is called El Titan de Bronze, and within its tiny confines, you will find cigars being rolled for the likes of Cohiba, La Palina, Partagas, Warped, Drew Estate, and La Gloria Cubana, as well as its own line of smokes. Female-owned and operated, this tiny tobacco powerhouse has only been up and rolling since 1995, but has since gone on to earn a reputation as one of the best cigar makers in North America.

Then there is the old Regensburg Cigar Factory (commonly referred to as El Reloj due to its clock tower), which first opened its doors in 1910. Constructed to support over 1,000 cigar rollers, this structure churned out over 250,000 cigars per day and an average of 60 million stogies per year at its peak. A feat that was made possible in part by the fact that the Tampa-based titan housed more usable square footage than any other cigar factory on the planet by that point. But by the end of World War II, the once mighty cigar manufacturer was struggling to keep its doors open, and a decision as to whether the business should be sold came to light.

So, in 1953, the J.C. Newman Cigar Company bought the old Regensburg Cigar Factory, in the process transitioning its operations from Cleveland down to Tampa. Today, this building not only stands as the last operational large-scale cigar factory in Tampa, but it is also the only traditional cigar company from the early 1900s still functioning in the United States. Daily operations may be a fraction of what they once were, but El Reloj still manages to employ around 150 people and produces around 12 million hand-rolled boutique cigars per year. For more on this absolutely fascinating cigar success story, be sure to check out "The American Story Series" on the J.C. Newman YouTube page. 

Today, Tampa is home to but a mere handful of cigar makers, many of which are housed in the traditional rolling district of Ybor City. So, if you have already done the J.C. Newman tour, or are looking for a more small-scale cigar experience, check out companies like Tabanero Cigars, Long Ash Cigars, La Faraona Cigar Factory, and Nicahabana Cigars.

Florida-Grown Tobacco Today

Up until recently, Florida had not recorded a single cosecha, or tobacco crop, since 1977. And then along came a man with a dream and a splash of financial backing...

The whole rebirth of Florida-grown tobacco, which at first glance appears to be little more than a 20-acre farm, is just as much of a passion project as it is a tobacco production process. A promise to keep the state's cigar roots from completely withering away, and a dedication to the craft of cultivation. But dig a bit deeper, and you will discover a cigar success story unlike any other, and what just might be the beginning of a Florida-grown tobacco renaissance. 

This side of the story all started when Jeff Borysiewicz, the owner of Florida-based cigar shop, Corona Cigar Co., decided to try his hand at farming tobacco. Enterprising and deeply devoted to all things Florida, Borysiewicz believes in more than just growing good tobacco. He has made it his responsibility to preserve a portion of the American Dream that many of us have either long forgotten or never knew existed in the first place. And thus, the Florida Sun Grown (FSG) tobacco farm, along with its own cigar line, was born. 

When word got out that someone was actually cultivating sun-grown tobacco in Florida, Drew Estate reached out to see if a tobacco purchase could be brokered. It may have taken some time, but the collaborative project between one of America’s most enterprising boutique cigar brands and the FSG farm eventually came to fruition and has seen a tremendous amount of success ever since.

Known as The 20 Acre Farm Cigar by Drew Estate, this blend has been heralded as the first major premium cigar blend to be produced with Florida-grown tobacco in nearly a century, and serves as an homage to the state of Florida's tobacco-growing glory days. Rolled up tight with an Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade wrapper leaf and held in place by a sun-grown Honduran habano binder, the Nicaraguan and Florida-grown long-filler mixture adds a fantastic flourish to the premium cigar blend.

“As a proud American, I believed it was possible to bring cigar tobacco farming back to Florida, on a small-scale, limited production way. As a cigar retailer, I believed consumers would be willing to pay a little more for cigars that contained genuine Florida-grown cigar tobacco, as long as the tobacco was unique, distinctive, flavorful, and of the highest quality. Fortunately, our Florida Sun Grown tobacco has all those qualities and more.” —Jeff Borysiewicz, Corona Cigar Co.

But Drew Estate's cigar isn't the only surviving link to what was once the great cigar and the tobacco-producing state of Florida. FSG continuously uses its  tobacco in its own cigar line, and sells quite a bit of its other harvests to companies like J.C. Newman for The American cigar blend, Davidoff for the Corona Cigar Co.'s 20th Anniversary FSG Cigar, Intensa Cigars, and Army of Angel's to name a few.

And while demand for his crop yields remains consistent, Borysiewicz is quick to admit that his small-scale operation isn't there for profitability, but is more of a break-even labor of love than anything else. That said, the FSG farm does still host the Drew Estate Florida Barn Smoker event on premise every year, and the company is in the news fairly regularly for its commendable agricultural endeavors. Who knows? Maybe this will inspire more Florida-grown tobacco farms to pop up, and in turn, we can get some new cigar blends that are unique and delicious.

Parting Puffs

If there is one big takeaway from all of this, it is that in this increasingly automated world, artisan hands and a love for the soil are increasingly rare to find, especially when it comes to premium cigars. While this statement is not exclusive to cigars or even the United States, I must say that a public disinterest in learning these time-honored occupations is incredibly disheartening. 

But I am forever an optimist, and seeing these Florida-based companies continuously striving (and succeeding) in an almost entirely overseas-dominated segment is undeniably encouraging. So do your taste buds and these family-owned small businesses a favor, and ask for a Florida cigar next time you are in the walk-in humidor down at the local smoke shop. I get the feeling you are going to appreciate what you get in return just as much as they appreciate your business.