Habanos Festival—The Beginning
My flight to Havana was scheduled to land at noon, but we touched down early, I flew through immigration and the baggage claim began to push out one massive suitcase after another considerably faster than I thought it would. By 2:00 pm I was not only checked into my hotel, I had a cigar in the ashtray and a cold beer to welcome me. It’s good to be back in Cuba.
I’m here for the Habanos Festival, an annual gathering of cigar distributors, retailers and passionate fans of Cuban cigars from all around the world. That’s a phrase you hear bandied about quite often, but this event really lives up to the worldwide hype. There are more than 3,000 people from 110 countries here, and it’s much like the United Nations of cigars. I’ve been on the island for less than 24 hours, and already I’ve spoken to people from Chile, Spain, Serbia, Brazil, France, the United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom, the United States and, of course, Cuba.
I’m here for a host of reasons. This weeklong event is one where I fill notebooks with information about the Cuban cigar industry, from new releases (and there’s a juicy one already, a big, new Behike you can read about here) to sales figures, market trends, the supply and prices of Cuban cigars and more. Cuba is also a tourist destination. No other major cigar-producing city has a comparable number of hotels, restaurants and culture for tourists. We report regularly on where to stay and eat in Cuba, and I’m on the lookout for new places—and to report on those that have closed.
A lot has changed here, of course. Americans are visiting less today given the sad state of affairs between our countries. Cuba has had more than its share of struggles, namely with keeping the power on. Life has not been easy for people on this island, and recent years have been particularly draining. But there is still considerable beauty here, and so much to see.
This is one of my busiest weeks, but one that I absolutely love. I consider it essential for what we do at Cigar Aficionado, as Cuba is the birthplace of the handmade cigar industry. There’s a lot of events in the cigar industry nowadays: just about every cigar-producing country has a festival, there are trade shows, product launches and parties. And there’s no way for me (or the other CA editors) to always go to all of them every year. I’d love to, but my job is to produce a magazine, and there are certain times of the year (last week was a perfect example) when I needed to be in the office every day. Sometimes the busy schedule at home means we just can’t make an event.
That said, this week meshed up perfectly with our production schedule, and here I am.
There’s so much to love here, and one of my favorite things is being able to enjoy a great cigar in a wide variety of places. I just finished a Montecristo Open, my first cigar of the day.
Yesterday, I had a Sancho Panza Molina, a Regional Edition Diplomaticos and a new La Gloria Cubana being made just for Casa del Habano cigar retailers. When I’m in Cuba, I fire up early and often, so I’ll be busy with my smoking. No, you can’t smoke everywhere here in Cuba, but you can smoke in many places. I had a cigar at my table for lunch, a cigar at my table for dinner and I puffed during the press conference. I’m about to light up something new pretty soon.
We’ll be posting a lot of news from Cuba this week. Stay tuned at cigaraficionado.com.
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