The cigar industry as a whole is a benevolent, trustworthy, straightforward passionate lot. Filled with astounding personalities, deep generational ties, immense amounts of pride and fantastic work ethic. All working in tandem to produce some of the most enjoyable and coveted product on the planet to the most diverse range of consumers possible.

So when something shady starts happening and is allowed to creep in the back door, kept under the rug, growing by the year – it’s especially important to snuff it out. That’s what’s going on right now and for the last few years (at least) with the practice of certain retailers rebanding non-genuine manufacturer-made cigars. Cigars that are made using non-manufacturer tobacco, made at non-manufacturer facilities with a non-manufacturer blend – yet sold and labeled as genuine manufacturer goods. If you buy a Ford Mustang you expect a Ford engine, not a Chinese no-name. Yet that’s exactly what you get with a variety of branded cigars at some places right now.

This issue came to light and a head recently when one such occurrence was made so incredibly poorly, consumers opened up cigars purchased to discover the atrocious fillers inside, rather than what they were advertised and sold. Yet it had been going on for quite some time under the radar, just not bad enough to ring the alarm bells. Also to be clear, I have no problem whatsoever with anything being reblended or produced elsewhere AS LONG AS that information is clearly advertised. THAT is the crux of this entire issue. The lies to the consumer!

The point of this post is not to further shame those involved. It’s to STOP the practice from happening. Obviously I have zero pull with the retailers or manufacturers doing it, but I have pull with consumers and to open many, many thousands of eyeballs. This is not a theory or a myth. It is something I have been told about by manufactures themselves, first hand. I have been told names of retailers, prices, names of manufacturers, cigar lines, factory names, etc. I have never broken the confidence of those sharing the info with me and never will. When those involved want or need to divulge the details they do.

I asked my viewers to contact manufacturers and retailers with some very simple yet specific questions in order to get some truth out in the open, or at least document some lies. Both happened. Below you will see the emails that many sent out along with the replies received over the past week+.

I will not comment specifically on the replies except to say I know of two replies that include untruthful responses according to those with first hand info telling me otherwise.

TO THE MANUFACTURERS AND RETAILERS reading this – I know that every single one of you that’s been around more than a few years knows this goes on. I also know you know quite a few names of who is doing it. I don’t expect you to air those names publicly. No one wants to risk legal consequences, I get it. HOWEVER – you are now at a crossroads. The public is now becoming aware of the practice. Most consumers WILL NOT TOLERATE it. Most will accept that you won’t name names but it would be a GREAT boon for you to be ahead of the PR curve on this and simply make a statement of:

“I am so-and-so of so-and-so Cigars. We are aware of the practice of cigars being reblended, produced using non-manufacturer tobacco, at non-manufacturer facilitates and sold using authentic packaging without the consumer being informed. We are aware of several such arraignments and vow that we will never do such a thing in the future.”

Any such retailer or manufacturer that publishes this will instantly gain consumer approval.

These were the questions and responses gathered – and a BIG thanks to those in the CO Fans group that helped get all these responses:

“To Retailer:
To whom it may concern,
Are you currently selling any cigars at all, labeled as those from a manufacturer but in fact are not made using said manufacturers tobacco or not made by said manufacturer at said manufacturer’s facilities while you are not displaying advertising to the effect of ‘this cigar is a reblend and/or made by someone else than the labeled manufacturer’? If you are, specifically which cigars are those?

TO Manufacturer,
To whom it may concern,
Are you currently allowing any retailers to produce or sell cigars using your brand that are not made by you, with your tobacco at your facilities and still call it yours? If so which cigars and which retailer(s)?”

RESPONSES:

Alec Bradley Cigars:
“We do not allow anyone to use our name unless it is a product that is manufactured by us. There are some “Exclusive Brands” that are made by us and distributed by tobacconists.”

Atlantic Cigar (.com)
“Plain and simple..No. Anything we have made for us is made by that manufacturer. Some companies buy just the cigar bands from a cigar maker and then make those cigars in another factory at a cheaper price, or they license their name out. Basically just using the brand name to sell their cigars. We do not do this. It is an unethical business practice. It hurts the cigar manufacturer that the name is being used as well as the customers and company selling them. Honestly we do not know why some cigar manufacturers do this. If the cigar that the company is making is not of good quality it can hurt the entire brand name. As a cigar manufacturer you would think they would want control of the quality of the product. ”

Cigar (.com):
“Thanks for the email, in order for me to get this question to the right person and ensure that we’re providing you with the most accurate information, can you provide me with some more details on your question and let me know what you’re trying to determine/accomplish?” – Response sent back to them.

Oliva Cigars:
“Thank you for writing. We do not allow retailers to use our Oliva name if we are not manufacturing the cigars. I hope this helps. Thanks again.”

Crowned Heads:
“We (Crowned Heads) sell our cigars (Crowned Heads) that are produced in two different cigar factories, i.e., Tabacalera La Alianza (Four Kicks, Headley Grange, J.D. Howard Reserve) and My Father Cigars (Jericho Hill, Las Calaveras, Mason-Dixon Project, among others). Our (Crowned Heads) cigars are NOT “reblends” of someone else’s cigar(s). In industry terms, we ‘contract’ our blends (our brands—our blends—our product vision) to be manufactured at a cigar factory; just like Tatuaje, Illusione, or any other cigar brand that does not own their own factory. Hope this makes sense.” – To which I elaborated to a greater extent, and ended with hoping he had a better understanding of what I was asking… and the response was “Loud and clear.”

Holt’s Cigar Company:
“We do not label the cigars, the cigars arrive labeled from the distributor…. Yes, I can assure all our cigars we sell are legit, I do understand your concern.”

A Fuente Company:
“Thank you for your email and interest in our company. We do not let anyone produce Arturo Fuente cigars for us, every cigar we make is made in our factories in the Dominican Republic. We do not have our cigars made by any other factory except ours. We do not sell our tobacco to other companies to make cigars either. These are a few of the things that make Arturo Fuente such a great cigar.”

CBID/CigarsInternational:
“Thank you for contacting Cigarbid.com.
For almost twenty years, Cigarbid.com has taken great pride in offering the finest quality cigars at the best price to over a million satisfied customers across America. If you’re ever dissatisfied with a purchase, we’ll always stand behind the product. We’re serious about the products we sell and work hard to present them correctly. If you ever have a concern with a product or a description, we welcome any feedback and we’ll look into it and update as necessary.
In the case of Los Blancos, we did not state that the product was long-filler, but the comments from our customers made us realize that people were under the impression that it would be. To correct that, we’ll be updating the descriptions to ensure that it’s 100% clear that these are not long-filler. Additionally, this video and discussion has led to some comments that we sell fake cigars. We buy directly from every major cigar manufacturer – from Blanco Cigar Company to Davidoff. The same cigars they sell to Brick and Mortar shops are the same that they sell to us. In addition, we do have some exclusive lines and brands with these manufacturers, but they too are purchased from or with the full blessing of the manufacturers whose names they bear. We want to run our company with complete transparency and honesty, and give our customers the best prices and experience possible.
If you ever have any questions or concerns, please send them over and we’ll do our best to address them. From all of us here at Cigarbid.com, we thank you for your support.”

Inquirer:
“I actually wasn’t specifically asking with regards to the Los Blancos that I bought… But since you bring it up, are the Los Blancos cigars that I purchased, the same Los Blancos cigars that I would get if I had ordered directly from the Blanco website?
So if the specific cigars up for auction are lines available at other “brick and mortar” stores or other established online retailers (excluiding any CBIB/CIgars International EXCLUSIVE cigars), then they are from the manufacturers and are the genuine article?”

CBID:
“They would be. All the products that we sell are genuine and direct from the manufacturer.”

Famous-Smoke(.com):
“Thank you for your email. All of our cigars are authentic from the manufacturer and sold directly from them. If there are any “factory reject” cigars available on our website, these cigars will be a mix of blended tobacco and labeled as such.”

ROCK PATEL:
“Dear Sir, Absolutely not. All Rocky Patel brands are produced in our factories in Honduras and Nicaragua. The only exception would be Java which is made by Drew Estates and distributed by us.”

Padilla Cigars:
“We currently make the majority of our cigars with the Oliva cigar company. The Reservas the Vintage Reserve, 1932 and Connecticut’s and cava are made at Oliva along with an exclusive private label for Famous SmokeShop called Crianza. We have been making cigars with Oliva for many years. We also manufacture a small production here in Miami at the El Titan de Bronze factory, those being our Padilla Miami 8&11 and Miami maduro. I hope this helps.”

BnB Tobacco:
“Thank you for your interest. We sell items made by manufacturers indicated on our website however we get some directly from the manufacturers and some are through distributors.”

BuyDiscountCigars(.com):
“We only sell cigars that are actually the cigar they say they are.”

AbsoluteCigars(.com):
“The answer to your question is: No. We source all our product either direct with the manufacturers or through nationally recognized legitimate distributors.”

La Flor Dominicana:
“The answer is no,we had never allowed any retailer to do this.”

Padron:
“Thank you very much for your email. We don’t allow anybody to manufacture or sell Padron Cigars which are not made by us, with our tobacco, at our facilities.”

NeptuneCigar(.com):
“The answer is no. If the cigars are labeled as from a manufacturer, they are made by that manufacturer and no one else.”

SmokeInn(.com):
“All the cigars we sell come DIRECT from various manufacturers, and each are sold and labeled EXACTLY as the manufacturer sells them to us. If there are any cigars that you’re thinking of that fall into the category you’re looking for, please let me know and I’ll gladly let you know if I carry them. But as for your question regarding advertising a cigar that isn’t what’s being advertised, there are none in our store of that nature. I hope I’ve answered your question.”

TopQualityCigars(.com):
“All cigars on our website are advertised as they are. If a cigar says My Father, it came from the My Father factories in one fashion or another. We never intentionally mislabel any products we put in our store. If you had a question about a specific cigar, we would be more than happy to answer that for you as well.”

Perdomo:
“Absolutely not.
Sincerely,
Nick Perdomo”

3/19/15 Additions:

Illusione:
“No, we do not.”

JR Cigars:
“I thank you for contacting us in regards to this matter – while it did take me a few times to read and derive the meaning of this message, I believe I have come to an answer. What I believe you may be referring to is our JR Alternative cigars. While these cigars do bear the name of other cigars (Macanudo, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, ect) they are our alternative and created by our manufacturer. This is not made by the manufacturers who created the original lines: Macanudo, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, ect. I hope this information is what you are seeking and please do not hesitate to contact us with any future questions or comments you may have. I wish you and yours all the best and a wonderful rest of your week!”

Pinar Del Rio:
“Would you please be so kind and tell us something more precisely about what your are saying. We would like to know store names or product names. Thanking you in advance for your cooperation. Best regards.”

Thompson Cigar Company:
“Thank you for contacting us. Thompson Cigar has always been devoted to delivering a wide selection of premium cigars. We do offer various Thompson private label cigars to provide to you the finest cigars at a fraction of what a comparable national brand would cost. We stand by our product; therefore, every cigar is sold as advertised. Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.”

My Father:
“No we do not”