Padilla Cigars

PADILLA BRAND HISTORY

Padilla is a boutique brand named for brand founder Ernesto Padilla who is also the son of celebrated Cuban poet Heberto Padilla. The Padilla family owned land in the well-known tobacco-growing province of Pinar del Río in Cuba. They contracted workers to farm the land and sold their tobacco to factories and brokers in Havana. When the Cuban Revolution unfolded, Heberto Padilla found himself at odds with Fidel Castro’s regime. Initially, he was permitted to continue his writing endeavors by Fidel’s government under the auspices that he not address politics. However, as oppression of Cubans spread, Heberto spoke out. Eventually, he was targeted and imprisoned. He was placed under house arrest from 1972 to 1980. The family sent Ernesto to Miami at 6 years old to join relatives who had fled the communist dictatorship years earlier. He remembered his father as always smoking a cigar.

In 2003, Ernesto Padilla began to pursue making his own cigars with a fixation on introducing something stronger than the milder profiles common during the Cigar Boom years of the 1990s. He got his start working for Nick Perdomo, owner of Perdomo Cigars. After a short time, he set out to develop his own brand. Early Padilla cigars scored consistently high in Cigar Aficionado and made three back-to-back appearances in the publication’s ‘Top 25 Cigars of the Year’ rankings. The brand benefited greatly from the boutique cigar craze that spread throughout the mid-2000s, and especially by the fact that the legendary Jose ‘Pepin’ Garcia (known as Pepin) made a number of the company’s first releases.

Like a handful of other emerging boutique brand owners, Ernesto recognized the talents of Pepin and was thoroughly impressed with the cigar-maker’s natural ability to blend premium tobaccos with a demonstrably Cuban tradition. Padilla contracted the Garcia family to make his cigars at their small, but increasingly sought-out Miami-based cigar factory. The Garcias had only recently immigrated to the States in 2002 from Cuba, where Pepin spent decades as a master cigar-maker charged with training hundreds of rollers for iconic brands like Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta. Today, the Garcia family is known best for making the lauded My Father and La Aroma de Cuba brands, among several others.

Ernesto eagerly embraced a ‘small-batch’ mentality. Many cigars he’s introduced over the years have been made in limited quantities. Although the approach lends a romantic perception, it may also be considered an impairment. The greatest common denominator in Padilla cigars is Ernesto, himself. Having parted ways with the Garcia family in 2008, he has come out with Padilla-branded cigars that are made in a variety of factories and countries, including the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, and of the course the U.S. with his Miami releases. He’s even attempted to open a signature Padilla factory in Miami’s famed cigar-making Little Havana district, on the same stretch where the Garcia family’s first cigar factory existed. An ever-curious and creative spirit, Ernesto has endeavored to work with a number of blenders and factories over the years, eager to learn all that he can from each experience, although maintaining consistency can be difficult as a result. One challenging circumstance lies in the branding of Padilla cigars. A number of product lines share the same or very similar brand names, despite being rolled in different factories and different nations. In some cases, they also sell for wildly contrasting prices.

Besides Pepin, Padilla cigars have been made by a variety of Nicaraguan cigar-makers, including Tabacalera Aguilar, Abdel Fernandez, and Oliva Cigar Company which manufactured Padilla Reserva and Padilla Maduro. For a stretch, Padilla cigars were exclusively distributed by Oliva, beginning in 2012, however their agreement diffused in 2014. Today, many of Padilla’s brands are made in the Raíces Cubanas factory in Honduras.

While Ernesto’s retail-focused, small-batch philosophy has resonated with boutique fans, past attempts to satisfy the online and catalog sales channels with exclusive editions have created a bit of market confusion. For example, alternative versions of Padilla 1932 (named for the birth year of Heberto Padilla) range in price from under $4 per cigar to around $30 apiece. Distinguishing the many Padilla brands can require a measure of investigation. Luckily, we’ve got a solid introduction to our top-selling Padilla cigars below.

PADILLA BRAND OVERVIEW

Brand owner Ernesto Padilla’s highest-rated cigar to date is the Padilla Miami blend, which earned 94 points in Cigar Aficionado in 2009. The medium to full-bodied profile is drafted from an entirely Nicaraguan recipe that shows off notes of chocolate and whiskey with a complex finish. Padilla Reserva, made by Oliva Cigar Company, also earned high marks with a ‘Top 25’ appearance in 2014 and a 93-point score for its woody and citrus notes. A Cuban-seed wrapper leaf grown in Ecuador enshrouds a balanced core of Nicaraguan long-fillers. The 92-rated Padilla Miami 8 &11 has been in the market a little longer than other releases and made it into the ‘Top 25’ releases of 2015. The blend has been produced in Miami, as well as outside the U.S. over the years. Its profile of oak, pine and dried fruit resonated with the critics.

Today, many of the cigars in Padilla’s portfolio are handcrafted in the Raíces Cubanas factory in Honduras, where a number of blends are produced for Alec Bradley, Illusione, and many others. Fluctuating demand has made it possible to obtain a number of Padilla releases at massive discounts. In 2009, Padilla Signature 1932 scored 93-points in the Torpedo shape with a concentrated profile of cocoa, cedar and leather. The original release sold for around $13, but now you can find the Padilla 1932 series for under $4 regularly in a number of subsequent releases. An Ecuador Habano wrapper leaf blankets a medium to full-bodied core of Nicaraguan long-fillers. The line is also available in a shimmering San Andrés Oscuro wrapper leaf in Padilla 1932 Black. Earthy notes of dark chocolate and espresso beans harbor crisp spices.

In 1968, Heberto Padilla was jailed by Fidel Castro for publishing writings the dictator found disruptive to his communist agenda. Ernesto came out with Padilla 1968 to commemorate the event. The 93-rated smoke debuted for around $6 with a recipe of Nicaraguan and Honduran long-fillers below a Nicaraguan wrapper leaf. Notes of earth, cedar, and coffee beans characterize the blend. The series has been released in a handful of popular additional wrapper options starting at under $2.50 per cigar. Padilla 1968 Black Bear is drafted from a Pennsylvania Broadleaf wrapper that displays medium to full-bodied flavors dark of chocolate with an amplified sweetness on the finish. There is also a Padilla 1948 cigar which celebrates the year that Heberto Padilla’s first book was published.

Named for the Greek Goddess of the Hunt, Padilla Artemis premiered with a medium to full-bodied, peppery sweetness courtesy of its Corojo wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and filler tobaccos. Because Ernesto elects to closeout certain product lines as he introduces new cigars into the mix, occasionally we may sell out of one blend or another until more cigars are produced. Such a scenario is common among small-batch brands.

Give Padilla Fumas a shot, starting at roughly $1.39 apiece. Connecticut, Habano, and Maduro wrapper options are available in 20-count boxes for an unbeatable price. In each blend, a handcrafted amalgam of Honduran and Nicaraguan tobaccos delivers plenty of familiar Padilla flavors you’ll be enamored with for the price of a typical yard ‘gar.

If you fall into the category of ‘curmudgeonly connoisseur’ like many of the loyal, value-seeking cigar lovers on the Holt’s mailing list, Padilla will be right up your alley with a deep boutique portfolio we blowout at everyday sub-wholesale discounts. If you’ve just put the brand on your radar check out our Padilla customer reviews for added direction on where to begin. Tempt your senses and your cigar savings account with irresistible discounts on handcrafted Padilla gems that permanently reside in our blowout bin!