JOYA DE NICARAGUA CIGARS
Joya de Nicaragua, S.A. is located in Esteli, 150 Km north of the capital city Managua.
Established in 1968 this company has the privilege of being the very first Nicaraguan cigar factory. Dedicated uninterruptedly for more than 40 years to the art of handcrafting cigars the company preserves a traditional style of cigar making and is commonly recognized as the doyen of the Nicaraguan cigar industry.
Today Joya de Nicaragua cigars are sold in more than 40 different countries around the world.
History…
Joya de Nicaragua, a country’s pride for more than 40 years…
What’s in a name? Everything when it comes to Nicaragua’s original premium cigar, Joya de Nicaragua. Translated into “jewel of Nicaragua,” the legendary cigar brand has captivated two generations of smokers around the world. Since 1968, Joya de Nicaragua cigars have mirrored the rich, bold and vibrant culture of Nicaragua. Joya de Nicaragua has also experienced the ups and downs of the last 40 years of Nicaragua’s tumultuous history, which has seen the country, and the brand, released from the bonds of dictatorship, suffer through the privations of war and an American embargo, struggle to get back on its feet and triumphantly return once more to its legendary status.
Many retailers who were in the business in the ’70s mention Joya de Nicaragua in almost mystical tones. After all, Joya de Nicaragua cigars were the official cigar given to guests at state dinners at the White House throughout the decade. Sales of Joya de Nicaragua cigars in the United States peaked at 9.5 million sticks in 1978, making it one of the best-selling premium cigars at the time and many retailers who were in the business in the ’70s speak about the brand in glowing terms.
Dr. Alejandro Martinez-Cuenca, owner of Joya de Nicaragua, agrees with those retailers who talk about the old Joya de Nicaragua cigars in mystical tones. The mystique, he says, comes from Nicaragua’s long history with tobacco, and some enterprising men who recognized the country’s potential to make great cigars.
Cigars have been made in Nicaragua since before Europeans began exploring the area. Rustic cigars made from native tobaccos, called chilcagre, and grown in different areas of the country continued after European settlement. Nicaraguan cigar production remained largely home-based for domestic consumption until ’60s, after Cuban exiles came to the country to experiment with how its climate and soils would grow Cuban-seed tobacco.
The results from those experiments were good and soon fields of Cuban-seed tobacco began springing up in the northern region of the country, specially Jalapa, Condega and Esteli. Most of this tobacco was sold to cigar companies in the United States, eager to find viable replacements for the Cuban tobacco they could no longer get due to the United States’ embargo on Cuban goods.
In 1967, two expatriate Cuban tobacco growers, Simon Camacho and Francisco Bermejo, acquired a loan from the government to establish the Nicaraguan Cigar Co.—the first Nicaraguan manufacturer to produce cigars for export.
They gave the name to Joya de Nicaragua, the first Nicaraguan cigar brand exported to the United States.
Sometime in 1970, an official in charge of buying supplies for the White House who was looking for a replacement for the Cuban cigars that had been served at state dinners saw the brand in a shop in Las Vegas. He bought some samples and thought the cigars were fantastic and Joya de Nicaragua became the official cigar served at state dinners in the White House.
Camacho and Bermejo had created a winner. Unfortunately for them, they lived in a country where the president, dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, could strong arm anyone into giving him something he wanted.
On June 11, 1971, Somoza visited the White House for the first official visit by a Nicaraguan leader since the 1940s. Somoza had purchased a box of Joya de Nicaragua cigars to give to President Richard Nixon as a gift. After dinner, when it was time to enjoy cigars with coffee, Somoza was surprised to see that Joya de Nicaragua cigars were already at the White House.
Upon his return to Nicaragua, Somoza offered to buy the company. Recognizing an offer they couldn’t refuse without serious repercussions, Camacho and Bermejo agreed to sell the company and left Nicaragua shortly thereafter.
Somoza owned the company until he fled Nicaragua as the Sandinistas took over the country’s government and nationalized all companies. Dr. Martinez-Cuenca represented Joya de Nicaragua cigars during the ’80s when, as Minister of Trade, his job included opening foreign markets for Nicaraguan goods. With the U.S. trade embargo on Nicaragua, Dr. Martinez-Cuenca turned his eyes to Europe, which became Joya de Nicaragua’s best market.
So when he became indirectly involved in the cigar industry through his post as Minister of Trade, Dr. Martinez-Cuenca became fascinated by the cigarmaking process and started studying the complexities of growing tobacco and making cigars.
When the Sandinistas were voted out of office in the 1990 Nicaraguan election, the country began a process of privatization. The Nicaraguan Cigar Co. and Joya de Nicaraguan brand ownership was given to the employees working at the factory. However, with so many people involved in making decisions, the factory foundered. In 1994, Dr. Martinez-Cuenca bought the factory and the Joya de Nicaragua brand.
“During the revolution, everything was nationalized, and the cigars lost some of their mystique,” he comments on the condition of the brand when he purchased it. “I had two challenges when I bought the company—I wanted to rebuild the mystique around Joya de Nicaragua and get it back to where it was in the ’70s, and I wanted to be able to sell the cigars in the U.S. again.”
Today, a little more than 3 million cigars are made annually in the Nicaraguan Cigar Co. factory and are sold in more than 30 countries. The fact that the U.S. embargo on Nicaraguan products forced Dr. Martinez-Cuenca to find other markets for its products served him well when he bought Joya de Nicaragua and couldn’t sell his cigars to the U.S.
Extremely proud of the Nicaraguan cigar industry, Dr. Martinez-Cuenca is even more pleased with his company’s place within it. He refers to the Nicaraguan Cigar Co., the first cigar factory in Esteli, as a university for cigarmaking in Nicaragua because thousands of young men and women have learned the intricacies of cigarmaking there before working at other cigar companies. He also finds it rewarding that Joya de Nicaragua has always predominantly used Nicaraguan tobacco, providing livelihoods for thousands more Nicaraguans. While the brand is a gem for cigar smokers around the world, Joya de Nicaragua has proven to be a real jewel for Nicaragua and its people.
