Padrón
A journey of resilience and excellence in cigar craftsmanship.
With over 56 years' experience in the quest for the perfect cigar and a heritage spanning more than 100 years, the Padrón family understands the importance of time. Their commitment translates into the exclusive manufacture of handmade cigars, offering the flavour of the Cuban heritage that gave birth to the Padrón recipe. Their main aim is to guarantee the highest quality, rather than focusing on quantity, as they produce around 5 million cigars a year.
From generation to generation, José Orlando Padrón's family have made their living growing tobacco in the rich fields of the Cuban province of Pinar del Río, as farmers.
After graduating from the Industrial Technical School in 1944, José B. Alemán returned to his father Francisco's 230-hectare farm. His job was to supervise and look after the tobacco crops, de-stemming them, sorting the leaves and planting the seedlings.
However, José, who shared the democratic ideals proclaimed by Fidel Castro during the revolutionary struggle against the Batista dictatorship, joined Castro's underground army.
In January 1959, Fidel Castro took power, but Lieutenant Padrón did not remain in the ranks of the revolutionary army. When Castro offered him another government post, José preferred to decline.
Later, in April 1961, he left Havana by plane for Spain, narrowly escaping a tumultuous period. Had he remained in Cuba, he would have been considered a person to be watched by Castro's intelligence services, risking a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to the standards of the time. After several lonely months in Madrid, José boarded the steamship Covadonga in December 1961, setting sail for the United States. He first worked in New York before heading for Miami in February 1962.
Arriving in an unfamiliar city in a foreign country, José Padrón had to start from scratch in Miami. At the beginning of his stay, he received government aid of 60 dollars a month, intended for Cuban refugees. Despite his strength and good health at the age of thirty-six, every time he cashed that cheque he felt like a burden on the country that had taken him in.
His friend Raul Fernandez from the Cuban Refugee Office asked him if he had any carpentry skills, to which José replied positively. Raul then gave him a small hammer and asked him to use it wisely. This gesture made José realise that he had the tools he needed to become self-sufficient and no longer dependent on government assistance.
Determined to provide for his family, José worked as a gardener during the day and used his carpentry skills at night. Through hard work and sacrifice, he managed to save enough money to open Padrón Cigars in 1964, making his dream come true.
Orlando started out with a single rolling machine and, thanks to it, was able to produce enough cigars containing his special blend. In the evenings, once his gardening and carpentry chores were done, he would go to the companies that sold puros.
The hammer became a symbol of his humble beginnings and how it all began. More than fifty years later, Padrón Cigars continues to thrive, proudly bearing the name of its founder and bearing witness to his remarkable career.
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