Everything you need to know about buying Cuban cigars

New laws and the pandemic have made Cubans elusive for Americans yet again. Don’t feel bad if Covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions kept you from attending the XXIII Habanos Festival in Havana, Cuba this past February. They didn’t have it. And for the second year in a row.

This marks yet another devastating, one-two money-losing punch to Cuba’s economy, where tourism and cigars are major sources of income for the beleaguered Communist nation. Last July’s riots in the streets of Havana were just one more indication that there was trouble in paradise. And now, even as the pandemic is hopefully starting to wane in the United States, that is far from the case in Cuba, where it has been dramatically affecting the island’s all important cigar industry. Here is the current state of affairs of the Cuban cigar scene and tips on buying them.

Can You Legally Buy Cuban Cigars in America?

No. Although under the Obama Administration, diplomatic relations warmed between the old Cold War foes, the world-famous cigars still couldn’t be purchased stateside. However, it became legal to bring back up to 100 Cuban cigars into the US—that’s about four boxes—as long as they were for your personal use and not for resale. To the dismay of cigar aficionados, under the Trump Administration relations with Cuba got positively chilly, and in September 2020 it once again became illegal to bring your own personal stash of Cuban cigars and spirits back to the US, no matter where you were traveling from. That doesn’t mean you can’t get Cuban cigars. You can still legally buy them practically anywhere else in the world except the US. But just because you’re in a country where you can purchase Cubans and bring them home, that doesn’t mean you’ll source them that easily right now.

Why You Can’t Find Many Top Cuban Brands

Right now, many of the top sellers—such as the Partagás Serie D or the Cohiba Behike—aren’t available in any great quantity. In addition, many of Havana’s new releases for 2022 have yet to be seen on dealer’s humidor shelves. It boils down, partly, to the dreaded “supply chain issues,” that have bedeviled numerous industries, but especially cigars in Cuba.

The massive outbreaks of Covid-19 and its Omicron variant in Cuba have reduced the cigar factory workforce by as much as 50 percent. But because of their importance to Cuba’s economy, the government has exempted cigar factories from the lockdown demands placed upon other businesses. Still, although strict safety measures were implemented, social distancing is nearly impossible in some factories such as El Laguito, where the Cohiba brand is made and individual workspaces are small. A two-month mandatory closing of the massive La Corona factory due to Covid outbreaks also seriously hampered Cuba’s production, even though very few factories in Cuba have completely closed.

Cigar production has been further curtailed as many workers stay home to quarantine or to take care of ailing family members. In addition, distribution snafus affecting other products are also hampering the supply chain of getting Cuban cigars to their top markets, which include England, Spain, Germany, France and China, which is now undergoing its own renewed Covid surge. As a result of all this, you’re likely to see some empty shelves in Cuban tobacco outlets, including the more than 150 Casa del Habano stores worldwide.

Beware of Counterfeits

The worldwide scarcity of legitimate Cuban cigars, of course, widens the opportunity for counterfeiters, which is an ongoing problem, even in Cuba—although Costa Rica and Mexico (where they sell “Monte Cristo” cigars to anyone who isn’t aware that the Montecristo brand is one word)—still vie for the title of Most Counterfeit Cuban Cigars Per Square Mile. So if anyone offers you a Cohiba Esplendido for $10, you know it can’t be real.

Consequently, some of the best places to buy authentic Cuban cigars are the United Kingdom (where they are rigidly inspected by exclusive Habanos importers Hunters & Frankau), Spain—which also gets some of the best Havanas due to its close ties with Cuba—and any of the official La Casa del Habano Cuban government-sanctioned retail stores. Duty-free shops are also a safe haven for authentic Cuban cigars, although supplies have been hampered during the past two years by the pandemic, which in turn has dramatically reduced passenger traffic.

Full story: https://robbreport.com/food-drink/cigars/cuban-cigars-explained-2846185/