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CIGARMAKER SPOTLIGHT
David Blanco, President, Blanco Cigar Co.:
Duty Bound For 22 years, Chicago native David Blanco has channeled four generations of his Cuban cigar making heritage, methodically carving a unique niche in the premium cigar market while juggling, at times precariously, ongoing military service. > BY E. EDWARD HOYT III
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here are precious few cigar companies operating in the U.S. market today that were established as far back as the late 1990s. Countless dozens rose amid a rush to cash in on a hot business trend, while others dreamt of lofty artistic expression; regardless, the vast majority succumbed to the complex challenges inherent in successfully crafting, then selling, premium cigars.
16 SMOKESHOP April 2020
Which isn’t to say that Blanco Cigar Company President/CEO David Blanco, who grew up in the Windy City among an older generation of Cuban relatives, hasn’t faced an even greater uphill battle in rekindling generations of cigar manufacturing heritage to forge a family business. In fact, Blanco’s path has been repeatedly tested by challenges that might have easily discouraged others.
Perhaps it’s a testament to another Blanco family tradition, that of military service, which seems to instill a sense of focused, goal-orient conviction that has helped define the company’s personality and resiliency over the years. “I grew up with cigar smoking in my house, with the older generation” Blanco explains. “It was like an old man thing, you know—they played dominoes, drank Cuban coffee, and smoked cigars. That’s what cigar smoking was during my youth and as I growing up.” Blanco’s immediate family had fled to Miami from Cuba in 1961, relocating a few years later to Chicago. “The family has been in the industry since 1886,” says Blanco. “I’m the fifth generation in the industry, but the first generation born off the island in Cuba.” “Even though I was smoking at a young age, I was the only one my age,” says Blanco, recalling there were no young people interested at the time. “It was the old men.”
