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FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS, A MAJOR MANUFACTURER GREW |
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Page 1 of 2  Inside the Winter edition of Smoke
Los Angeles, January 7 – “In my first year, I sold 9,400 cigars and I was pretty proud of myself.”
That was how Nick Perdomo started in the cigar industry, way back in 1992. In a wide-ranging interview in the Winter issue of Smoke magazine, Perdomo explains how he grew Nick’s Cigar Company into the industry powerhouse Tabacalera Perdomo.
Perdomo told contributing editor Gary Artz about the start: “I was actually working for the Federal Aviation Administration as an air traffic controller. I had just gotten married and I wanted to supplement my income.” He had exquisite timing as the Cigar Boom was beginning to gather steam. “By 1997, we were having a tough time,” he recalled. “We were selling every cigar that we could make, but we were making cigars in the United States and trying to compete with the Dominican Republic and Honduras and keep the same pricing. But, of course, my labor costs were about 300% higher than theirs. In the summer of 1997 my father went to Nicaragua and opened up a facility there. It was the best move we ever made.”
Perdomo is proud of the vertical integration of his company, right down to harvesting wood to make the boxes for his cigars. But perhaps his most important advantage is his approach to farming and to fermentation.
On the farming side, Perdomo says soil rotation is incredibly important. “We do not grow tobacco every year on the same farm. We rotate. That is why we have so many acres. I like the ground to rest for a minimum of one year before I grow on it.”
Once the tobacco is harvested, Perdomo says he has a proprietary method of aging, which he outlined to Artz: “[W]e have been barrel-aging a lot of our tobaccos. These were procedures that were done in Cuba many years ago, but it became very expensive. We bought a tremendous amount of bourbon barrels from Blanton Bourbon Co. in Kentucky – they only use the best oak barrels. And this makes a huge difference in fermenting tobacco. The alcohol dissipation inside the barrels helps the tobacco age better.”
He added another note which makes his approach quite different. “[W]e do not bale any of our tobacco. We keep it under fermentation until we barrel age and roll the cigars. We want the tobaccos, when they are made into cigars, to be at their richest, at their fullest aromas and bursting with flavor. That makes us a little bit different from other manufacturers.”
Perdomo says he and other cigar makers have been repeatedly assured by recently-elected Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega that they will not be interfered with. But he has a “Plan B” just in case. Better for Perdomo and for his 2,300 employees will be if he is left alone to concentrate on making cigars in Nicaragia and selling them in the U.S. and elsewhere.
That’s just one highlight of the newest issue of Smoke. Also of note: This issue’s tasting included 34 cigars, of which 27 received grades of 9.0 or better. The top scorers from reports from 20 independent reviewers included:
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