Getting the internet here in Santiago to cooperate has been somewhat of a struggle picture-wise, but for those wondering why halfwheel has been a little quieter than normal, it’s because Patrick Lagreid and I have been in the Dominican Republic for the 2015 ProCigar Festival. The event formally started on Monday in La Romana, which is located in the southeastern part of the country. It’s a somewhat calm start to the week as the majority of attendees do not even make it to La Romana because the vast majority of factories are in Santiago. In fact, there’s only one ProCigar member factory in La Romana, but it just happens to be the largest premium cigar factory in the world. Its name is Tabacalera de García, the Dominican factory of Altadis U.S.A. We toured the massive factory on both Monday and Tuesday visiting premium tobacco storage, sorting, aging, rolling, packaging and the company’s $1.5 million box factory that was constructed a few years ago. It’s big, it’s unique and ultimately, it’s impressive. Tabacalera de García is not a boutique cigar factory. And yet, while it does a number of things differently, it’s a reminder that at the end of the day tobacco seeds ...
↧