Portraits: Brian Chinnock
There are a lot of cigar brand owners who enjoy wine. Many of them have seen their love of grapes spill over into the names…
Portraits: Omar de Frias
If Omar de Frias did not own his own cigar company, the line for people calling the former pro basketball player turned NASA employee to…
Portraits: Nestor Miranda
In 1989, Mariana and Nestor Miranda entered the cigar business. At the time, the latter was a liquor distributor, while the former ran the company’s…
Portraits: K.C. Johnson
L’Atelier Imports is represented by four individuals—Pete Johnson, Dan Welsh, Sean “Casper” Johnson and K.C. Johnson. If you are thinking three brothers and a guy named…
Portraits: Ernesto Padilla
If you want to know what Ernesto Padilla is thinking, just ask him. The son of Heberto Padilla, the famed Cuban poet, does not mince…
Portraits: Dan Welsh
Dan Welsh might be the most famous cigar retailer in the world without a store. His New Havana Cigars established itself as the retailer for…
Portraits: Nicholas Melillo
Nicholas Melillo made news earlier this month when he announced his departure from Drew Estate. He spent 11 years in the tobacco side of the…
Portraits: Terence Reilly
Terence Reilly long boasted about how he did not have a title. The story goes that Manuel “Manolo” Quesada Jr., Reilly’s uncle, did not believe…
Portraits: Litto Gomez
Very rarely seen without his signature hat, Litto Gomez of La Flor Dominicana embodies everything there is to love about tobacco, and the history of…
Portraits: Michael Herklots
Always impeccably dressed, Michael Herklots has been in the industry more than 15 years, first as a store manager at the Humidor, then as a sales…
Portraits: Rocky Patel
Ask anyone who the hardest working man in the cigar business is, and odds are one of the names you will hear most often is…
