“Pro Cigar Festival”
The region’s indigenous roots live on today in the form of tobacco production. Over the years, due to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, the U.S. cigar market has increasingly bought hand-rolled fine cigars from the Santiago region (a.k.a. El Cibao). E. León Jiménez’s best-known label is “La Aurora”. There are also foreign-owned cigar labels in the area, such as Davidoff, Fuente, and Cohiba (General Cigar Company), among others. Depending on the cigar label, some of them allow for tours of their production facilities. It is no surprise that a few of these cigar makers (such as Fuente) were once cigar makers in nearby Cuba before that country’s revolution.
Santiago’s thriving cigar industry throws an event to promote itself called the “Pro Cigar Festival”. Held every February, it attracts American and other international cigar aficionados. The well-known publication Cigar Aficionado always has a presence there. Participants get a chance to meet the cigar makers themselves (including Avo Uvezian, the grandfatherly-looking Lebanese-Armenian entrepreneur whose “Avo” cigars are distributed overseas by Davidoff). With his white suit and plantation straw hat, Uvezian is hard to miss. In addition, participants get to tour the tobacco fields and curing & rolling areas to inspect in person these labels’ cigar production. Pro Cigar’s festivities are capped off by a ballroom party (often held at the finest hotel in Santiago, the Hotel Gran Almirante), and a golf outing at the Casa de Campo resort complex on the island’s southern coast.