ProCigar Festival Concludes In Dominican Republic
Right in the middle of cigar festival season, ProCigar wrapped up its 16th festival last week in the Dominican Republic and raised more than half a million dollars on the final night for charity.
The ProCigar Festival is an annual cigar-centric event where Dominican cigarmakers welcome enthusiasts from around the world to showcase their factories and tobacco fields. It’s a casual affair that’s part vacation, part celebration and part education, as all the tours show the entire process from seed to cigar. But the festival is also a way to for smokers to have a deeper connection with the Dominican cigars they smoke throughout the year. Normally, the fields and factories are not open to the public, making this festival a particularly attractive destination, especially for those who want to know more about the ins and outs of how fine cigars are made.
If you have Dominican cigars in your rotation, there’s more than a good chance that the cigarmaker behind it participates in the festival. This year, the field and factory tours included Arnold Andre, Arturo Fuente, Casa Carrillo (formerly Tabacalera La Alianza), Davidoff, De Los Reyes Cigars, La Aurora, La Flor Dominicana, PDR Cigars, Quesada Cigars, Tabacalera de Garcia (makers of Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta) and Tabacalera Palma (makers of La Galera).
As is annual tradition, each night at this year’s festival ended with a gala where guests and cigarmakers converged for a night of dinner, live music and cigars. None were as grand, however, as that of the final evening, held at the Centro Español in Santiago, the cigarmaking capital of the Dominican Republic. It was a black-tie affair that ended with a charity auction of rare and one-of-a-kind humidors, hosted by Michael Herklots, co-owner of Ferio Tego cigars.
Every participating cigarmaker donated something special to the auction, and all the lots sold. The top item was the Fuente Fuente OpusX Serie Heaven and Earth Big B humidor, which went for a winning bid of $70,000. All told, the auction raised more than $530,000 for its various charities: Voluntariado Jesús con los Niños (a non-profit organization for ill children); Sociedad San Vicente de Paúl (senior retirement home for low-income elders) and ProCigar’s charitable initiative “A Home for My Family,” which helps to provide housing for disadvantaged, yet deserving, employees of the members companies.
The cigarmakers are particularly generous during the festival, as you’re given more cigars each night than you can carry, and that’s not including the cigars passed out at each tour. Should you decide to go next year, our advice still stands: pack light and leave plenty of extra room in your bags for cigars. You’ll need it.
