A Miami shop, a Nicaraguan field
José Orlando Padrón was born in 1926 into a tobacco-farming family in Pinar del Río, Cuba. His ancestors had farmed in the Canary Islands before moving to Cuba. He left Cuba in 1961, arrived in Miami in 1962, and in September 1964 opened Padrón Cigars using his savings, which the family says were six hundred dollars earned from carpentry work with a hammer a friend had given him. The first factory was a small storefront with one roller, and the cigars sold for twenty-five cents each.
According to the company, he ultimately chose Nicaragua tobacco because the soil in the valley of the Estelí region had a climate similar to Pinar del Río, and reminded him of home in Cuba. Nicaraguan tobacco was part of his blend by the late 1960s. Growing and manufacturing fully moved to Nicaragua around 1970. From then on, the cigars were Nicaraguan puros rather than Miami-made cigars using whatever tobacco an exile could buy.
The company faced serious setbacks, including the civil war in Nicaragua, a fire that destroyed the Estelí factory, and even attacks on the Miami business. Through all of this, the family built the brand and kept growing its tobacco in Nicaragua. Jorge Padrón, the founder’s son, became the company’s president. José Orlando Padrón died in 2017. The original hammer from 1962 is still kept by the family as an icon of the company, and its image is used on marketing and branding of the business, as a nod to its humble origins.
How the company works
Padrón is vertically integrated, which means the company controls each stage itself: seed, farm, curing barn, fermentation pile (pilón), factory, and boxing. It grows and buys Nicaraguan tobacco, ferments it, ages it in bales, rolls the cigars in Nicaragua, and sends them to Miami to be inspected and shipped to retailers. Sun-grown habano leaf gives the brand its signature look.
The standard Padrón Series is a long-filler, medium-to-full-bodied cigar made with tobacco aged for at least two and a half years, offered in a range of traditional sizes. The 1964 Anniversary series, introduced in 1994 to mark the company’s thirtieth year, uses tobacco aged for four years and is box-pressed in the Cuban style. The 1926 Serie, introduced in 2002 for José Orlando’s seventy-fifth birthday, is full-bodied, uses tobacco aged for five years, and is also box-pressed. The Family Reserve, originally the family’s private stock, marks special anniversaries with tobacco aged for ten years, packed in numbered boxes of ten.
For how they smoke, see the reviews.
Awards
Cigar Aficionado named the 1926 No. 40 its Cigar of the Year in 2004, and gave the same title to the Padrón 1964 Anniversary Torpedo in 2021. These are the magazine’s top accolades.
Miami and Estelí
The company’s two locations each have a practical role. The tobacco cultivation and the rollers are in Nicaragua. Distribution in the United States, and a final inspection of the boxes, happen in Miami. A cigar that fails inspection is not sold under a different name; it is not shipped at all. For Padrón, vertical integration means control: the company would rather wait for the next crop than use substitute tobacco to meet a sales target.
That patience is why the family talks about warehouses full of aging bales. Press reports give different figures for how much tobacco is stored. The more useful facts are the published aging periods, and the company’s decision not to roll other companies’ tobacco in its Nicaraguan factories. Padrón cigars are made only from Padrón tobacco.
See nicaraguan cigar for the wider Nicaraguan cigar industry, and how cigars are made for the general process, which Padrón controls from start to finish.
Sources: Padrón (padron.com): José O. Padrón biography, hammer story, vertical integration; house line descriptions; public magazine honors.