Procigar 2024: Day 0

First and foremost, this could also be considered Procigar 2024: Day 2. 

That said, like most Procigar attendees, I started Procigar 2024 in Santiago de los Caballeros, the heart of the Dominican cigar industry. So because of that, I am going with Tuesday being Day 0.

WHAT IS PROCIGAR?

Procigar is actually two different things.

First, it’s the main Dominican cigar manufacturers’ association. It consists of a dozen member companies, all of which have cigar factories in the Dominican Republic. Those members include:

• Arnold André
• Casa Carrillo (E.P. Carrillo)
• De Los Reyes
• General Cigar Dominicana (General Cigar Co./STG)
• La Aurora
• La Flor Dominicana
• PDR Cigars
• Quesada
• Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia (Arturo Fuente)
• Tabacalera de García (Altadis U.S.A./Tabacalera USA)
• Tabacalera Palma (La Galera)
• Tabadom Holding, Inc. (Davidoff)

If you buy a box of cigars made at one of those factories, you will see a small Procigar logo on the side or bottom of the box.

The organization works both locally and internationally to help the factories and promote Dominican cigars.

For most people outside of the Dominican Republic, the name is best known because of the Procigar Festival, which is the longstanding Dominican Republic cigar festival that the group hosts.

WHAT IS THE PROCIGAR FESTIVAL?

It’s a week-long event that technically kicked off on Sunday at Casa de Campo, on the eastern tip of the island, before moving to Santiago on Tuesday. From Wednesday through Friday, there are full days of events, with the highlight for most guests being Thursday night’s white party, where guests are asked to dress in white clothes.

Wednesday and Thursday are pretty similar: guests have the option to take tours to one of the dozen companies. Some companies offer tours of farms, some go to factories, and there’s also a beach day. Some companies host only one tour, others host both days. Typically, you will spend the whole day with one company before being dropped back off at your hotel in the afternoon to prepare for the dinners.

Friday is a bit different as all attendees go to one tobacco field for a field day that includes trivia, dancing, music, lots of food, arts and crafts, games and the chance to meet representatives from each factory. Procigar finishes Friday night with a formal gala dinner that includes a charity auction.

For those unfamiliar with our Procigar coverage, each day I’ll write about what I’m doing in much more detail.

The first part, which Patrick Lagreid and I attended for years, is a much different vibe than the rest of the week. It’s a lot smaller—only 85 attendees this year; for context, there will be 800 people at the white party—and a lot calmer. On Monday there was golf and a trip to a sandbar. Earlier today, guests got to visit Tabacalera de García, which is in nearby La Romana and the one member factory located outside of the Santiago area.

By the time I went to register, the La Romana part was sold out, making my choice a lot easier. Because of traveling west to east, I lost nearly a full day getting to Santiago, so I flew in on Monday in hopes of getting a good night’s sleep. Yeah, that didn’t happen.

WHAT DID YOU DO ON TUESDAY?

I spent most of the day visiting Arturo Fuente’s factory operations in Santiago. Two years ago, Brooks Whittington and I spent more than three full days trying to photograph the massive Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia factory buildings. After taking more than 10,000 photographs, I think Brooks has curated about 200 of them, which, at some point, we will publish.

When we were there, there was expansion happening, meaning I knew that our photos would be somewhat out-of-date. As it turns out, much is the same, but a lot is different. While walking around, I either ran into or saw from a distance a number of people also stopping by for visits: Christian and Jessica from Just For Him, Eric from Cigar Dojo, and others. Many of the veteran Procigar attendees will come into Santiago a day or two before and do like I do, visiting factories that they may not see on their tours.

In the evening, I headed to the first official Procigar event in Santiago: the welcome cocktail party. It’s been hosted at the Hodelpa Garden Court for a handful of years now. In the short time I was there, I saw a bunch of familiar faces. What’s interesting is that while many were people in the industry I know,  some of them were people that I can’t recall seeing at Procigar. On the flipside, I ran into a few consumers I seem to see every year at Procigar.

While standing next to Eric Newman of J.C. Newman, I heard him tell someone else something that stuck with me: everyone’s smiling. That was true. While Tuesday night is the most lowkey night of the week, it was nice to catch up with familiar faces and meet some new people.

Many people—especially those of us who have been to many Procigars—will stop by the welcome cocktail gathering for a little bit before heading to dinner elsewhere, but the 100 or so people I saw all seemed to be having a good time.

Unfortunately, I haven’t picked up my registration pack yet, so I’m not sure what cigars are in there, but I suppose that’s the tease for reading tomorrow’s post.

I’ll spend most of tomorrow at the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation, the school in Bonao that was started by the Fuente and Newman families. Of all the tours, it’s the one I try to sign up for each and every year. Seeing the joy on the students’ faces is something that elicits a feeling of emotion that no cigar factory can.

Disclosure: Procigar covers the cost of my registration, which includes my hotel stay.