Footnotes/references Carcinogenicity: IARC group 1
Davidoff is a Swiss premium brand of cigars, cigarettes and smoker's accessories. The Davidoff cigarette brand has been owned by Imperial Brands after purchasing it in 2006.[1] The non-cigarette portion of the Davidoff tobacco brand is owned by Oettinger Davidoff AG, which is based in Basel, Switzerland.[2]
Oettinger Davidoff AG manufactures cigars, cigarillos, pipe tobaccos and smoker's accessories under the brands Davidoff, Camacho and Zino Platinum. The cigars are produced in the Dominican Republic and Honduras, and tobacco is sourced from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras and the United States of America.[3]
Name
A Cuban-made Davidoff Dom Pérignon with its namesake, Dom Pérignon champagne
The brand name Davidoff originates from the surname of its Switzerland-Jewish-born founder, Zino Davidoff (born Sussele-Meier Davidoff; 1906, Novhorod-Siverskyi – 1994, Geneva),[4] who ran a tobacco specialist shop in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1926 to 1994.[5] He was known as the "King of Cigars".[6]
History
Dominican-made Ambassadrice
After the Second World War, Zino Davidoff decided to acquire a licence to produce his own series of cigars.[5] As he had discerning international customers, he named the various formats of this "Château" cigar series after famous Bordeaux vineyard estates. The first in the series was the "Château Latour" in 1946.
In 1967, Zino Davidoff was approached by Cubatabaco, Cuba's state tobacco monopoly, about creating a line of cigars carrying the "Davidoff" name. The cigars were rolled in the newly established El Laguito factory in Havana, which had been established to roll Cuban President Fidel Castro's own personal cigars, named Cohíba.
In 1968, the first cigars carrying the name "Davidoff" were released. The first formats were the No. 1, the No. 2 and the Ambassadrice. In 1970, Oettinger AG, located in Basel, Switzerland, acquired the rights to the Davidoff trademark.
In 1971, the Davidoff "Mini Cigarillos" (short fillers made of 100% tobacco) and, in 1972, the first Davidoff pipe tobaccos were released. As of 1975, the cigars of the Château series were delivered in cabinets bearing the Davidoff logo.
In 1976, the "Mille Series" and, in 1977, the “Dom Pérignon” cigar, named after the champagne, were released. In 1986, a limited release of "Anniversario" cigars were produced, to celebrate Zino Davidoff's 80th birthday.
After numerous disputes over quality and ownership rights, Zino Davidoff and Cubatabaco decided to end their relationship. Leading up to this, in August 1989, Zino had publicly burned over one hundred thousand cigars that he had deemed of low quality and unfit to sell. All Davidoff products produced in Cuba were officially discontinued in 1991. An agreement was signed that no more Davidoff cigars from Cuba would be sold.
In 1990, after discontinuing Cuban-made products, Davidoff started to produce cigars in the Dominican Republic. After numerous test runs, Zino Davidoff found a partner in the local producer “Tabadom”, owned by Hendrik Kelner.
In 1991, the first Dominican-made Davidoff cigars were launched, continuing the product lines and cigar formats of their Cuban predecessors. With the move to the Dominican Republic, the Château series was renamed "Grand Cru", and the individual formats were numbered instead of carrying the names of vineyard estates.
In 1991, the limited release called "Aniversario" became an ongoing cigar series, called the "Aniversario" series. In 1992, the "Special" cigar series was released, with the format "Special R" as the first product. In 1994, the 87-year-old Zino Davidoff died in Geneva, Switzerland.
Min Ron Nee, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars (2003, Reprinted: 2005).
James Suckling, "In Search of Davidoffs: Connoisseurs are Buying Up Stocks of the Swiss Cigar Maker's Discontinued Havanas," Cigar Aficionado, vol. 2, no. 1 (Autumn 1993), pp.46–55.
Dieter H. Wirtz, Davidoff - Legend, Myth, Reality, Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin 2006
A cigar is a tobacco product made to be smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of shapes and sizes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct components: the filler, the binder leaf which holds the filler together, and a wrapper leaf, for appearance and flavor, which is often the highest quality leaf used. Often there will be a cigar band printed with the cigar manufacturer's logo. Modern cigars can come with two or more, highlighting special qualities such as age and origin of the tobaccos used.
Rolling paper is a specialty paper used for making cigarettes. Rolling papers are packs of several cigarette-size sheets, often folded inside a cardboard wrapper. They are also known as 'blanks', which are used to encase tobacco or cannabis. It may be flavoured.
A cigarillo is a short, narrow cigar. Unlike cigarettes, cigarillos are wrapped in tobacco leaves or brown, tobacco-based paper. Cigarillos are smaller than regular cigars but usually larger than cigarettes. Cigarillos are usually made without filters, and are meant to be smoked like a cigar and not inhaled.
Cuban cigars are cigars manufactured in Cuba from tobacco grown within that island nation. Historically regarded as among the world's “finest”, they are synonymous with the island's culture and contribute nearly one quarter of the value of all exports from the country.
Cohiba is a brand for two kinds of premium cigar, one produced in Cuba for Habanos S.A., the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic for US-based General Cigar Company.
Montecristo is a brand of cigars and cigarettes produced separately and independently in Cuba by Habanos S.A., the national tobacco company, and in La Romana, Dominican Republic by Altadis, a subsidiary of British conglomerate Imperial Brands.
Bolívar is the name of two brands of premium cigar, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic from Dominican and Nicaraguan tobacco for General Cigar Company, which is today a subsidiary of Scandinavian Tobacco Group. Both are named for the South American revolutionary, Simón Bolívar.
Cohiba is a Cuban brand of cigarettes created by Habanos S.A. They are currently manufactured by the French-Spanish company Altadis, a subsidiary of Imperial Brands. Since 2003, "Brascuba Cigarrillos" has produced the brand in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Russia.
Arturo Fuente is a cigar brand founded by Arturo Fuente, Sr. in 1912 in West Tampa, Florida. Following a catastrophic fire in 1924, the brand had a production freeze for 22 years, reemerging in 1946 on a limited, local basis. Ownership was transferred to Arturo's younger son, Carlos Fuente, Sr. in 1958. Following the 1960 United States embargo of Cuba, the Fuente brand began a period of slow and steady growth, emerging as one of the most critically acclaimed makers of hand-rolled premium cigars outside of Cuba. As of 2010, the company was producing 30 million cigars per annum from its factory in the Dominican Republic.
Partagás is a brand name of cigars that are made by two independent & competing entities, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company; the other, containing no Cuban tobacco, produced in the Dominican Republic for General Cigar Company, a division of Scandinavian Tobacco Group of Denmark.
Habanos S.A. is a Cuban manufacturing company of tobacco that controls the promotion, distribution, and export of premium cigars and other tobacco products for Cuba worldwide. It was established in 1994.
Cubatabaco, short for Empresa Cubana del Tabaco, is the Cuban state tobacco company. The company was formed in 1962, after the Cuban tobacco industry had been nationalized by Fidel Castro's socialist government.
The term Dunhill cigar refers to a Cuban-made cigar produced for and offered by Alfred Dunhill of London under its own varying brand names spanning several eras, as well as special lines made up of cigars produced by prestigious Cuban makers offered only by Dunhill.
Por Larrañaga is the name of a cigar brand produced in Cuba for Habanos S.A., the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, as well as a non-Cuban line of cigars produced in the Dominican Republic and Honduras for Altadis, a subsidiary of Imperial Brands. Por Larrañaga cigars have been in continuous production in Cuba since 1834.
Backwoods is an American brand of cigars that was introduced in 1973. This product was notable during the 1970s and 1980s for heavy advertising, which became one of the more obvious examples of how companies at the time reacted to changing laws and cultural views on public health and smoking culture.
Flavored tobacco products — tobacco products with added flavorings — include types of cigarettes, cigarillos and cigars, hookahs and hookah tobacco, various types of smokeless tobacco, and more recently electronic cigarettes. Flavored tobacco products are especially popular with youth and have therefore become targets of regulation in several countries.
Cigar etiquette is polite behaviour when smoking a cigar. For example, in 19th century Havana, it was considered an insult to give another smoker a light from your cigar without first knocking off the ash from the cigar. Another breach of etiquette was to pass on a cigar to a third-party to light up too - loaned cigars should instead be returned with a polite flourish.
General Cigar Company is the largest manufacturer of premium cigars in the world. It is a subsidiary of Scandinavian Tobacco Group with North American headquarters located in Richmond, Virginia.
Camacho Cigars was a cigar company founded in 1962 by Simon Camacho and acquired by the Eiroa family in 1995. Now part of the Oettinger Davidoff Group, Camacho Cigars is based in Danlí, Honduras, and specializes in handmade Cuban seed cigars. After being exiled from Cuba in 1961, Simon Camacho began his cigar business in Miami, Florida. Simon Camacho’s cigars gained success in the United States, as well as abroad, and were even known to be enjoyed by British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Consequently, Camacho has since named one of its most popular cigars after Mr. Churchill. The vitola was developed in the Romeo Y Julieta factory in Cuba in approximately 1903. Production during this period reached 2 to 3 million cigars per year and the quantity continued to grow as the 1990s cigar boom years approached.
Zino Davidoff Group is the trading name of Zino Davidoff SA, a Swiss family business that was spun out of tobacco-product company Davidoff in 1980. It is active exclusively in the non-tobacco luxury goods segment and offers a range of upscale products.
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