Cohiba (cigar brand)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cohíba is a brand for two kinds of premium cigar, one produced in Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic for General Cigar. The name cohíba derives from the Taino word for "tobacco".
Cohíba was originally a private brand supplied exclusively to Fidel Castro and high level Cuban government and communist party officials. Often given as diplomatic gifts, the Cohíba brand gradually developed a "cult" status. It was released commercially for sale to the public in 1982.
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[edit] Cuban Cohíba
Cuban Cohíbas are known to use some of the finest cigar tobacco available in Cuba. The tobacco for Cohíba is selected from the finest Vegas Finas de Primera (first-class tobacco fields) in the San Luis and San Juan y Martinez zones of the Vuelta Abajo region of Pinar del Río Province. The tobacco used to fill the cigars is unique among Cuban marques because it undergoes a third fermentation process in barrels, which is reputed to give it a smoother flavor than other cigars. Originally all Cohíbas were made at the El Laguito factory, a converted mansion located on the outskirts of Havana. Later, production of some Cohiba vitolas was expanded to other factories.
[edit] History
Cohíba began with the cigars smoked by a bodyguard of Fidel Castro's named Bienvenido "Chicho" Perez. Castro noticed he often smoked a "very aromatic, very nice" cigar. When asked by Castro what brand he smoked, he replied that it was rolled by a friend of his who would give him some of these special cigars as gifts.
The man in question was a cigar roller working at the La Corona factory in Havana named Eduardo Rivera. Castro approached Rivera about rolling cigars for him personally and set him up with five other rollers in a former diplomatic mansion in a suburb of Havana known as El Laguito (Spanish for "the little lake"). Later, the factory became the first cigar factory to be staffed entirely by women torcedoras (cigar rollers).
The cigars were reserved for Castro himself, other high-ranking Cuban officials, and were commonly presented to foreign dignitaries as gifts. Castro himself is reputed to have been particularly fond of the long, thin cigars rolled for him, especially the sizes that would become the Lancero and Corona Especial.
To coincide with the 1982 World Cup being held in Spain, Castro decided to release his personal cigars as a premium cigar brand for public consumption. When it was first launched in 1982, the Cohíba marque consisted of three vitolas or sizes: the Panetela, the Corona Especial, and the Lancero. In 1989, three more vitolas were added (the Robusto, the Exquisito, and the Espléndido) and together with the first three vitolas are referred to as the Línea Clásica.
In 1992, in comemoration of Christopher Columbus and his voyage to the Americas, Habanos SA launched the first sizes in what it calls the Línea 1492, with each size named for a century that has passed since Columbus' discovery. The initial launch included the Siglo I, Siglo II, Siglo III, Siglo IV, and Siglo V, with a Siglo VI added in 2002. A long-standing rumor is that the original Línea 1492 was a replacement for the Davidoff marque that recently ceased production in Cuba (as each of the first five "Siglos" corresponded to a size in the Davidoff line-up).
Outside of the regular production lineup, Habanos SA regularly releases limited release Cohíba cigars for such events as the annual Habanos Festival, brand anniversaries, and their annual Edición Limitada release of limited edition special sizes of their various cigar brands wrapped in a darker vintage leaf.
Cohíba also produces two machine-made cigarillos: the Mini and the Club.
Habanos SA also leveraged the renowned Cohiba brandname throughout the years and have produced Cohiba cigarettes since 1987 and Extra Cohiba Cognac since 1999.
As of late 2006, Cohíba has released four different Edición Limitada Cohíbas: the Pirámide in 2001, the Double Corona in 2003, the Sublime in 2004, and a remake of the Pirámide in 2006.
[edit] Vitolas in the Cohíba Line
The following list of the Cohíba marque includes the size in inches and ring gauge with metric in parenthesis. Also, the vitola de galera or factory name of that size is included along with its popular size name in American cigar vocabulary.
La Línea Clásica
- Lancero - 7 1/2" x 38 (192 x 15.08 mm) Laguito No. 1, a long panetela
- Corona Especial - 6" x 38 (152 x 15.08 mm) Laguito No. 2, a panetela
- Panetela - 4 1/2" x 26 (115 x 10.32 mm) Laguito No. 3, a cigarillo
- Exquisito - 4 7/8" x 36 (125 x 14.29 mm) Seoane, a cigarillo
- Robusto - 4 7/8" x 50 (124 x 19.84 mm) Robusto, a robusto or rothschild
- Espléndido - 7" x 47 (178 x 18.65 mm) Julieta, a churchill
La Línea 1492
- Siglo I - 4" x 40 (102 x 15.87 mm) Perla, a tres petit corona
- Siglo II - 5 1/8" x 42 (129 x 16.67 mm) Mareva, a petit corona
- Siglo III - 6 1/8" x 42 (155 x 16.67 mm) Corona Grande, a long corona
- Siglo IV - 5 5/8" x 46 (143 x 18.26 mm) Corona Gorda, a corona gorda
- Siglo V - 6 3/4" x 43 (170 x 17.07 mm) Dalia, a lonsdale
- Siglo VI - 5 7/8" x 52 (150 x 20.64 mm) Cañonazo, a toro
Edición Limitada Releases
- Pirámide (2001) - 6 1/8" x 52 (156 x 20.64 mm) Pirámide, a pyramid or torpedo
- Double Corona (2003) - 7 5/8" x 49 (194 x 19.45 mm) Prominente, a double corona
- Sublime (2004) - 6 1/2" x 54 (164 x 21.43 mm) Sublime, a large toro
- Pirámide (2006) - 6 1/8" x 52 (156 x 20.64 mm) Pirámide, a pyramid or torpedo; a remake of the 2001 EL
Special Releases
- Millennium Reserve Pirámide - 6 1/8" x 52 (156 x 20.64 mm) Pirámide, a pyramid or torpedo
- Behike - 7 1/2" x 52 (192 x 20 mm) Released in a special humidor in 2006; only 100 humidors with 40 cigars each are made
[edit] Dominican Cohiba and legal battles
With the nationalization of the tobacco industry on the island following the Cuban Revolution, many cigar makers fled the island and began growing tobacco with smuggled seed in places such as the Dominican Republic and Honduras, taking the brand names of their cigars with them.
Because of the precarious legal and trademark situations created by Cuba's communist government and a US embargo against all Cuban goods, there are many brand names that are present on both Cuban and non-Cuban cigars, though the non-Cuban varieties of such cigars as Hoyo de Monterrey or Montecristo cannot usually be sold under those names in foreign markets where Cuba is considered to own the trademark. To circumvent this, most non-Cuban cigar manufacturers simply sell their cigars under different names for the foreign market while retainning the old pre-Revolution name in the US market. But there has been heated debate between Habanos SA and other cigar manufacturers about using the brand names of Cuban cigars created after the Revolution in the US market, Cohiba being one of those brand names.
In the 1990's, US-based cigar manufacturer General Cigar Company, Inc. began mass-marketting a Dominican-made cigar under the name of "Cohiba" for the US market.
General Cigar first registered the Cohiba name in the United States in 1978 and claims to have sold cigars under the Cohiba name in the US in limited quantities through the 1980's until its current incarnation with the so-called "Red Dot" Cohiba (named for the red dot in the middle of the "O" in "Cohiba" on its bands and boxes) in 1997. Cubatabaco (the government-run company in charge of cigars, half-owner of Habanos SA, along with Altadis SA) promptly began a campaign to have General Cigar's trademark revoked and numerous legal battles ensued that were partly resolved on 19 June 2006, when the U. S. Supreme Court denied Cubatabco's petition. As a result, the February 2005 decision of the U. S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals (Docket #04-2527), which confirmed General Cigar Company’s exclusive ownership of the COHIBA® trademark in the United States, is final and is law of the case. The General Cigar-made Cohiba cigars now have a disclaimer on boxes that they are not affiliated in any way with the Cuban brand.
However, the United States government, in an amicus curiae brief filed in the Supreme Court, acknowledged that Cubatabaco could request U.S. government permission for judicial protection of the brand from the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers the U.S. blockade. Cubatabaco has stated that they intend to pursue this course of action.
[edit] Trivia
Cohiba cigars feature in the film Hotel Rwanda. Paul Rusesabagina has a box specially imported from Cuba to give as gifts to businessmen and diplomats. He says "If I give a businessman 10,000 francs, what is that to him, he is rich. But if I give him a Cohiba cigar, that is style."
