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| CIGAR STAR FROM THE MARIEL BOATLIFT |
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Page 1 of 2  A look at the entertaining mid-year issue of Smoke magazineLos Angeles, October 9 – It’s past summer, but we’re not going to leave the hot weather behind without a belated look at the mid-year issue of Smoke, complete with Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof on the cover. But it’s the story of Oliveros Cigar Co. president Rafael Nodal that’s the most striking. In a question-and-answer session, Nodal calmly relates his stunning story. “Originally, I’m from Cuba,” he noted. “My family had been in tobacco for four generations – not as cigar producers, but as growers. At that time in Pinar del Rio, most people were growers. Then I came to the United States in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift and I went directly to New York where I played classical piano and violin – I studied music since I was very young. “Three years later I moved to Miami, but found it was very difficult to make a living as musician – Miami had no symphony orchestra or professional classical groups. So I started working in a hospital – first as a custodian and then worked my way up into finance. Eventually I moved up to an Assistant Director for a psychiatric company. That’s where I met my future business partner, Hank Bischoff, who worked in management. “Hank was a big cigar smoker. One day he asked me to meet a friend that he said reminded him of me. That friend was Nick Perdomo, and that was my introduction into the cigar world – it was actually in Nick’s old office in Little Havana I started smoking cigars. That’s what brought me back to what my family had done for a long, long time.” Nodal and Bischoff started off with an Internet cigar-retailing company, then helped the Oliveros Cigar Co. and when the business failed, they took it over. Starting with a customer base familiar with Oliveros’ flavored lines, they expanded their reach into standard-style cigars, made in the Dominican Republic. But Nodal and Bischoff’s Habana Cuba Cigar Co. are expanding well beyond that point, having introduced a powerful, Honduran-made blend called the Oliveros Eight-Zero in 2007 and during the summer debuted an all-ligero, extra-full-bodied cigar called the King Havano, made in Nicaragua. How good are Nodal and Bischoff? They also produce cigars for others, notably the Kinky Friedman line for the ubiquitous singer, songwriter and sometimes politician. Nodal noted that the blending process is all-important, but there is also plenty of competition around today. “[Y]ou try to differentiate with a comprehensive approach to the marketing, the packaging. But specifically, pay a tremendous amount of attention to the blending.” |
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Did you know?
“Cellophane sleeves on cigars were introduced into wide use only in the 1940s.
