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The history of General Cigar Company, Inc. is the story of one
family and its love of tobacco. It is a rich and colorful story of
tobacco dealers, growers, and entrepreneurs, which stretches over
150 years.
The tale begins in 1848, a time of revolutions in Europe. Ferdinand
Kullmann, a wine merchant from Germany, immigrated to the United
States. He anglicized his name to Cullman, continued his work
selling wines in America and also, according to family lore, made
and sold cigars.
In turn, his son, Joseph, went to work at the age of 14 for a tobacco
merchant located at 175 Water Street in New York City, buying and selling
leaf tobacco. It was not easy to make money in those days, and to supplement
his income he played piano in the evenings, coming to be known as "Piano
Joe." Eventually he did well enough to be able to send his son, also called
Joseph, to college.
After graduating in 1904, young Joseph Jr. entered the tobacco
business. Known as "Mister Junior," he began by buying Havana seed,
Connecticut broadleaf, some Cuban tobacco, and tobacco in Wisconsin and
Ohio. Like his father, he also imported Sumatra tobacco from the Dutch
East Indies and would go to tobacco auctions in Amsterdam for the Indonesian
wrapper tobacco.
But Joseph Jr. had his eye on another aspect of the tobacco
business. He wanted to grow tobacco in Connecticut, although his father
thought he was crazy. Tobacco for cigars was being grown there, but it
was Connecticut broadleaf, a dark, maduro-style wrapper. Joseph brought
Havana seed, or Cuban seed as it was also known, and tried it in the fertile
flat fields of the Connecticut River Valley. The wrapper that came in was
lighter, and it had great appeal for consumers. His father was convinced,
and the Cullmans became one of the largest growers of wrapper leaf in the
state.
Soon another generation of Cullmans was ready to follow the family
tradition. In 1944, after returning from Washington where he had been
working for the U.S. Treasury, Edgar Cullman decided he wanted to work
in his father's tobacco business. His father said he had to learn the
business by learning how to roll a cigar and how to grow tobacco.
Edgar joined H. Anton Bock, a little cigar company in New York located on
Second Avenue between 65th and 66th Street. For three days a week he would
arrive at 6 a.m. In those days people used two-, three- and four-year old
tobacco, blending and aging them together. Edgar learned how to sort and
shake the Cuban tobacco that came in, how to open up the bales, how to
moisten - "case" - the tobacco, and count the leaves. Later he'd sit down
at a bench and roll cigars. As he says, he could only roll a few cigars a
day and would never have made any money "…but I learned how to roll."
The other two days a week, during the summer growing season, Edgar spent
in the tobacco fields or in the tobacco sheds where the leaves hung from
the rafters for their initial curing. Or, during the winter months, he was
inspecting the warehouses where the tobacco was bulked and processed before
being sorted into the various grades.
Meanwhile the family company, which was called Cullman Brothers, grew and
prospered selling their sought-after tobacco to cigar-makers. Yet Edgar
Cullman wanted to do more. He wanted to put to use the fine tobacco he
grew. And he looked around for a cigar company to buy.
His first attempt to buy a company - Bayuk, a filler-maker - failed. However,
in 1960 the opportunity arose to buy General Cigar Company, the producer of
White Owl, William Penn, Van Dyck and Robert Burns brands of cigars. Cullman
put together a group and accomplished the deal. He also became CEO and
president of the company. His lack of management experience did not faze
him; he loved tobacco and insisted they have better and better tobacco for
the filler, binder and wrapper leaves.
In 1968, the company purchased a cigar producing facility in Jamaica, Temple
Hall, and its brand Macanudo. Although now the number-one selling premium
brand in the United States, at that time only small quantities had been
produced for the British market. To broach the U.S. market required much
greater numbers of cigars, all made with exacting attention to quality and
consistency. The blend would have to be different, too.
After a lengthy internal debate about the blend, General Cigar began making
Macanudo in 1971 with a new and unique blend of tobacco grown by the company
and soon introduced it to the U. S. Edgar Cullman brought to bear all his
30 years of experience with fine tobacco leaves. He had always wanted
Connecticut Shade for the wrapper, and from day one the wrapper was from
a specially developed, specially picked and processed seed of tobacco. And
the wrapper was aged two to three years. Only aged filler tobacco was used,
as well.
Cullman had the help of another expert whose devotion to and love of tobacco
was equal to his own: a Cuban from an old tobacco family, Ramón Cifuentes.
Cullman credits Cifuentes with teaching him an enormous amount about tobacco
and with instilling in General Cigar's workers important tobacco-handling
and cigar-making techniques. As Cullman explains it, "There's a feel you have
for tobacco, its silken leaves, how to stretch it - you either have it or you
don't. You have got to always think of the leaf." Cifuentes "had" the feel.
Today, the Macanudo brand consists of four lines: Macanudo, the classic cigar
brand; Macanudo Robust, a fuller-bodied variation introduced in 1998; Macanudo
Maduro, introduced in Fall1999; and Macanudo Vintage Cabinet Selection.
As popular as the brand is, the majority of the line is still produced
one-by-one, by hand. And Edgar Cullman spends time at every table of rollers a
t the facility, where he emphasizes the importance of the rounded crown - a
hallmark of Macanudo - comparing it favorably to his own rounded "dome."
As Macanudo started to take off, a new generation joined the business. Edgar
M. Cullman, Jr., became an executive trainee at General Cigar in 1974. And
like his forebears he, too, learned the cigar business from the ground up,
starting in the fields and the cigar factory.
Another event served in the mid-1970's to help propel General Cigar to
the pinnacle of the premium cigar business. The Cullmans purchased the
rights in the United States for Partagas cigars from the Cifuentes family
who had made the legendary brand in Cuba until Castro took over. Ramón
Cifuentes helped build Partagas into one of the leading brands today.
With two of the most significant premium imported brands in its portfolio,
Macanudo made from the Connecticut shade wrapper and Partagas from the Cameroon
wrapper, it was logical for General Cigar to acquire the leading Honduran
cigar-maker, Villazon & Company. In 1997 the renowned brands Punch, Hoyo
de Monterrey, Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur, and El Rey del Mundo became
members of the family.
In 1997 and 1998 two other brands - brands whose trademarks are owned by
General Cigar in the United States - were re-introduced to the American
market. Cohiba and Bolivar have joined a loyal following among those
seeking a full-bodied cigar experience.
In 1996, under the leadership of Edgar Cullman, Jr., General Cigar
Company opened a cigar bar, Club Macanudo in New York City.
Today General Cigar Company is the largest manufacturer and marketer
of premium, imported, hand-made or hand-rolled cigars - those made
with long filler and all natural tobacco leaf. Through another subsidiary,
Culbro Tobacco, it grows, cures, ages and processes the majority of the
Connecticut Shade tobacco in the world. It owns 1100 acres of prime
Connecticut River Valley land, leases an additional 500 acres in Connecticut
and another 80 in the Dominican Republic where it grows filler leaves and, more
recently, Candela wrapper leaves. Without doubt it is the largest and most significant,
vertically integrated company in the business of making the world's finest cigars.
Yet, it is a big company with deeply held family traditions and values.
Just ask any of the members still active in production and management,
from Edgar M. Cullman, chairman, to Edgar M. Cullman, Jr., president and
chief executive officer, to David Danziger, executive vice president of marketing
and sales, and a grandson of Edgar M. Cullman, how deeply they care about their
products and how much they love the business.
The answer is there in words and deeds: cigars that demonstrate the
family's enduring commitment to quality and to the tobacco leaf itself.
In the words of Edgar Cullman, "I have always been proud about smoking
cigars." His great-grandfather would be proud of the 150 years' legacy he
left his family. It is a legacy sure to continue for generations to come.
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