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ONE OF THE KEYS TO HABANOS’ PRESTIGE –ESPECIALLY COHIBA’S- HINGES ON AN EXCLUSIVENESS FORGED ALONG A THOROUGH PROCESS OF TECHNIQUES AND EXPERIENCES, MANY OF THEM PASSED ON SECRETLY FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION

T he discovery of the magical seduction powers of today’s purest and most original habano went down in the books, with undisputed accuracy, on November 2, 1492, when Christopher Columbus ordered his interpreter, Luis de Torres, to explore the newfound lands. According to Columbus, Torres had been near the conqueror of Murcia and was Jewish, so he could speak Hebrew, Chaldean and a little bit of Arabic,” meaning he was an illustrated Sephardi qualified for that job.
Luis de Torres’ astounding recount after his return, jotted down in Columbus’ Sailing Diary, turned out to be the first testimony about the pleasant effects the native islanders used to feel as soon as they had started inhaling those rolls of scented dry leaves, lighting it up on one end just to receive its emanations on the other end.
Since then and over the course of more than five centuries, the quest for a purer, more aromatic and more refined habano, capable of rubbing elbows in the most exclusive lounges and shining as bright as a gem in the hands of men and women, ready to delight the most demanding connoisseurs, became an obsession for the world’s finest cigar rollers clustered in the factories of Havana, the place where tobacco leaves from the Vuelta Abajo and Partido plantations –the very best on the island nation- were shipped.
As soon as they found out about the aromatic leaf and unraveled its sensual effects, Europeans fell head over heels in love with its enthralling pleasures. Neither royal bans nor papal excommunications prevented it from spreading out across the Old World.
Two centuries after its discovery by Columbus in the Maniabon chiefdom, in eastern Cuba, harvesters who had settled down on the island had already unearthed many of its secrets, to such an extent that they quickly pinpointed the region of Vuelta Abajo, in the western province of Pinar del Rio, as the place that holds a perfect combination of unique and exclusive soils and climate, which coupled with their own experience, turned it from 1773 onward as the land of the world’s finest tobacco. Sophisticated growing works performed there bring about an exceptional tobacco leaf.
From that moment on, the most coveted and bestselling habano brands came into being and eventually strengthened.

The Evocative Exquisiteness of Originality
One of the keys to habanos’ prestige –especially Cohiba’s- hinges on an exclusiveness forged along a thorough process of techniques and experiences, a process that kicks off with the selection of seeds and a complex farming procedure, all the way to the equally special and thorough preparations before the hand-rolling and the manufacturing course get started in the cigar factories.
Since the early 1960s, agricultural research studies began in Cuba –a blend of science, experiences and vocation- in an effort to come up with the perfect alchemy, something that could let the country move on far beyond existing boundaries in the habano realm.
But as it usually happens with geniuses, the initial upshot off the first sample –which eventually became the heftiest bearer of the entire tobacco wisdom- came to pass fortuitously.  
According to the story, on a cool spring afternoon, Bienvenido Perez Salazar (Chicho), chief of Commander Fidel Castro’s bodyguards, was waiting inside his car for the Cuban leader to finish his daily tasks. Then, he decided to light up one of the habanos his friend Eduardo Rivera Irizarri had given him as a gift a few days back. Mr. Irizarri and Chicho had worked together in the late 1950s as cigar rollers at the Por Larrañaga Factory, at the time penciled in as the “University” of the Trade.
When Fidel hopped on the car, he noticed the aroma off Chicho’s smoke and asked him where he had gotten that. Delighted by that question, Chicho drew out another of the cigars rolled by Eduardo and offered it to the Cuban leader, who quickly lit it up. A couple of wafts later and as a token of complete satisfaction, he started asking questions about the creator of that whimsical silhouette of peerless scent. That moment marked the beginning of Cohiba’s captivating legend.
As old friends from Palma Soriano, their hometown, Chicho went to meet Eduardo at the La Corona Cigar Factory where he was working at the time. Yet, this time around he’d come with a commission that would change his life forever. From that moment on, he was tasked with producing, on a regular basis, a larger amount of those special cigars he used to share with his friend, Fidel’s chief bodyguard.
The whole world was watching in those days the media-hyped photo of the Cuban leader puffing on an elegant habano of unseen size and look, completely stripped of the famous identity band.
Sooner rather than later, the new vitola became the most coveted brand by aficionados who kept on asking around the ways to lay their hands on it.
The Commander’s cigars grew to be the smoke of choice for other revolutionary leaders, like Ernesto Che Guevara, who reportedly said time and again that he had “never smoked anything better” in his whole life.

Excellence Perfection with Female Hands
Growing enchantment with the beautiful vitola turned it into a sought-after government gift. Today, in the El Laguito Cigar Factory’s photo book –the place where large-scale production began- visitors can see samples of customized bands designed for King Juan Carlos of Spain, former presidents Luis Echeverria (Mexico), Juan Velasco Alvarado (Peru), Omar Torrijos (Panama), Houari Boumedienne (Algeria), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), among others.
In late 1964, Commander Fidel Castro took his chief bodyguard aback with a question he didn’t see coming: Chicho, are there any female cigar rollers?
“Only a few, Commander”, he replied.
Fidel made inquiries about the time a person needed to complete his training as a cigar roller and the cost of it. The next thing he knew, the Cuban leader let him in on his project to found a school for female cigar rollers.
The delicacy of women’s hands got a hold on a decisive stage linked to the quality of the end product within the tobacco industry. It had started with the experiment at the El Laguito Factory, quietly set up in a mansion nestled in a formerly exclusive residential area.
A first group of four women, under Eduardo’s leadership and four other experts, got the groundbreaking project going on October 19, 1965, a move that would eventually revolutionize this larger-than-life trade. Shortly after that, the first boxes of the sleek vitola called Laguito 1 –resulting from the delicate handling of those female hands- came out.
Large-scale outputs required good selection of the raw materials and the systematization of Eduardo’s methodology in order to reach the sophisticated end product. The seasoned cigar roller toured the fine tobacco plantations of El Corojo, La Perla de Llevada, La Fe, Cuchillas de Baracoa, Santa Damiana –all of them in Vuelta Abajo- and others in the region of Partido, in Havana.
Following countless tests and tasting sessions, Eduardo and his colleagues finally reached the perfect blend they were looking for: a secret never revealed that hits its pinnacle with an additional fermentation process carried out at the factory, in cedar barrels lined up in a darkroom where toxins, such as tartrate and part of the nicotine, are wiped out. Ammonia is also removed, so the stuffy stink is gone and the pure tobacco scent sets in.
As the quality of a mass production was certified, recognition for the unknown cigars Fidel Castro used to smoke and give away was spreading around the globe and the new vitola was crying for a name, a brand, the definitive baptism.
A woman of special sensitivity, Celia Sanchez, who had been born on the hillsides of the Sierra Maestra and had become Fidel Castro’s top aide, brought back the right name from the very roots of its history, the same name the native islanders had given to tobacco when they met Columbus and offered it to him as a welcoming token: Cohiba, the same word Luis de Torres and Rodrigo de Xerez had heard during their first inland skirmish, the same term Fray Bartolome de las Casas logged in his memoirs.
Of course, there’s more than just one secret in the artistic making of this supreme product that now hits the markets under the name of Cohiba, but the key to it lies in a culture that has evolved for over five centuries, passed on from father to offspring, down in the plantations and at the factories, settled down in the original and only location Mother Nature handpicked for the enjoyment of those who do know how to revel wisely in the pleasures of life –with all due respect for the gods.