Cuban Cigar Wars: A Legendary Exile Braces For U.S. Re-Opening

By Jonathan Levin
Bloomberg

Manuel Quesada puffs on one of his creations – a funky-looking thing called a Q D’etat – as he tells a story about the Cubans getting under his skin. It was at a dinner last year in Germany, when Cigar Journal honored him with a lifetime achievement award. Everyone rose for a standing ovation, except the people at the Cubatabaco table, the representatives of the state-run monopoly.

To be fair, the presenter had just recounted how the Quesada family had to flee the island in 1960, their business having been seized by gun-toting forces loyal to Fidel Castro. It was a decidedly uncomfortable several few seconds, ending only when an executive from another table scurried over and persuaded the Cubans to get to their feet.

“They were shamed into standing up,” Quesada says, stewing over it. “I consider myself to be a kind and peaceful man, but do not piss me off. That’s why I don’t go to Cuba. Because they will piss me off.”He’s some 800 miles away at the moment, in his family’s hazy cigar lounge in Santiago, the colonial city in the heart of the Dominican Republic where he, his father, brother and a cousin built a new tobacco enterprise in exile. It’s a 20-minute drive from the red-brick factory that produces Quesada Cigars’ iconic hand-rolled Fonsecas, everything from short, stubby robustos to giant Churchills, most fitted with the signature red and gold band, and all sold exclusively in the U.S.

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