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| WHY IS IT CALLED "PILOTO CUBANO"? |
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Page 1 of 2  Plenty of highlights in the Fall issue of Cigar Magazine!Los Angeles, August 18 – The native tobacco grown in the Dominican Republic is called Olor, a fairly gentle leaf that is widely used for binder and for some filler blends. But it’s Piloto Cubano which is the tobacco that is used in so many cigars to provide the flavor. Where did it come from? The answer is fully detailed in the new, Fall 2008 issue of Cigar Magazine. Writer Frank Seltzer details how Jose “Pepe” Mendez had to leave Cuba in 1960 as the Castro regime began to nationalize the tobacco industry, including his father’s highly-successful tobacco-growing operation in the Pinar del Rio district and his cigarette factory, which produced what was then the most popular cigarette brand on the island, Regalias El Cuno. Pepe Mendez went first to the U.S., then to Spain and finally landed in the Dominican Republic in 1962. By using Cuban techniques of grading and fermenting leaf, he put Dominican tobacco on the map and American cigar companies began buying it. At the same time, Mendez began receiving letters from Cuba in envelopes that were also stuffed with cotton. Wrote Seltzer, “Inside the cotton were seeds for Piloto Cubano, a tobacco named for the town it came from in the Pinar del Rio region. In a bold move that changed the future of the post-Cuban cigar industry, Pepe began growing and processing this tobacco in the Dominican Republic.” Mendez died in 1983, but the company continued to grow and is run today by his son-in-law, a German engineer named Siegfried Maruschke and daughter Mercedes. Their son Siegfried Peter (known as Fito) is also deeply involved. A team of five agronomists led by Fito constantly monitor the soil conditions in the Cibao Valley, the richest zone for tobacco in the Dominican Republic. Said Fito, “We classify based on taste and characteristics. Each zone has slightly different soil and climate so it all affects the taste.” According to the story, “Mao, the westernmost zone, has a rich, reddish soil that is very much like that of Cuba. It is a bit drier than the soils of other areas of the Cibao Valley and is perfect for Piloto Cubano tobacco. Navarette, due east from Mao, has sandy soil, but because of its location next to the mountains in the north, cool breezes yield a smoother leaf of Piloto Cubano. A bit further east is Villa Gonzalez and Jacagua, which both yield a milder Olor. To the south of the river is La Canela, whose climate is very dry. The tobacco that grows there is stressed because of the weather and yields heavier leaves or more ligero.” There you have it. Jose Mendez & Co. continues to offer quality tobaccos from the Dominican Republic to its clients, which start with Altadis U.S.A., but include a “who’s-who” of the top cigar makers outside of Cuba today. That’s only one of the terrific features in the Fall issue, which also includes: |
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Did you know?
“Although the preferred humidity setting for cigars is 70%, temperature control of 70-75 F is equally important.
