Zoom in

Zoom in

HAVANA LAYS BARES ITS BONDS WITH HABANOS THROUGH DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES FROM THE CUBAN CAPITAL, A SYMBIOSIS THAT SPEAKS OF CULTURES, SECRETS AND CONFLUENCES

Distinguished men of Havana —along with women with outstanding careers in the fields of art and literature— offer their talent to the world, accompanied by their works and an inseparable Habano as a sign of identity.
Havana gave its name of noble native origin to the exquisite bunches of tobacco leaves in Pinar del Río, which were turned into ceremonial objects in temple-like factories.
Anointed with the secret powers of their mix-raced color and the softness of their skin, skilled tobacconists mold with their artisan hands these Habanos as seductive, elegant jewels.
It is said that Alejo Carpentier, the Havana man who better described his city —stuck in that terrestrial kingdom of magical realism developed in his stories— excited his colleagues in Paris every time he gifted them a Habano from a cedar box hidden in his portfolio.
From colonial times, foreign travelers were amazed when they saw Havana’s people walking proudly with their Habano inside the pocket of their guayaberas or coats.
Nicolás Guillén, native of Camaguey who settled in the “capital city of all Cuban citizens,” where he established himself as the National Poet, was one of those distinguished gentlemen who always had a Lancero cigar in hand; ready to liven up a talk or a social gathering.
“The intensity, originality, and Cuban traits found in his verses were always part of him —according to writer Armando Cristobal—, as well as his impeccable image of a well-dressed mulatto with ironed clothes and some Habanos in his pockets.”
Cristobal himself recalled that María de las Mercedes Santa-Cruz y Montalvo, Countess of Merlin, born in Havana, in 1789, was one of Cuba’s first celebrated women due to her public passion for Habanos.
Writer with excellent prose, tireless traveler, and friend of famous people like Goya, Balzac, Lizt and George Sand, the Countess of Merlin accompanied her celebrated surname with cigar smoke.
Recently, Venezuelan Laura Silva Nones wrote recently in El Nacional de Caracas, “the air in Havana smells like plantation, factory, tobacco (…) it is a sweet, penetrating smell, even warmed and sensual.”
And immediately she adds, “we think of Lezama Lima and that partner with whom we share worries in endless nights: the lonely Habano hanging on his lips in the eternal putout of the chronic asthmatic, the anxiety of the smoker, and the tip of the cigar lighted in all its splendor.
It is not a coincidence that we can look at the portray of the author of the amazing Paradiso, imposing like his work, kind, smiling and mysterious, surrounded by wisps of smoke of the Habano.
The victorious Revolution led by Fidel Castro, who came down from the Sierra Maestra Mountains in 1959 smoking a Habano, took the Habano on a new dimension of heroic and libertarian features, supported by the image of legendary Ernesto Che Guevara smiling with a Habano in his mouth, along with charismatic Camilo Cienfuegos, who enlightened the friendly vigor of his face with a long Habano.
Leonardo Padura, Cuban writer born in Mantilla, Havana, is one of the best detective novel authors with his famous character Mario Conde, to whom smoking a Habano “feasts the eyes, stimulates the sense of smell, and finishes up the touch.”
Pianist Chucho Valdés, awarded in Europe and the United States by the mastery of his performances, usually performs accompanied by a Habano, which travels from his lips to his elegant hands, as his outstanding predecessor Ernesto Lecuona experienced.
Polemical and controversial from the early years of his career, singer-songwriter Amaury Pérez Vidal, member of the new song movement, publicly stated that he loved Habanos since he was a young man, in times when it was believed to be a thing of older people.
On the verge of its 500th anniversary, Havana enjoys seeing a new generation of men and women —Cubans and foreigners— walking around squares and parks, or its extensive seafront, singing, meditating, loving, and enjoying the centenary pleasure of caressing a Habano.