Man behind well-known Cuban cigars dies at 91

El Nuevo Herald

MIAMI—The name of Jose Orlando Padron evokes the aroma and image of some of the best cigars in the world.

Padron, the founder of Padron Cigars, died Tuesday at Mercy Hospital in Coconut Grove. He was 91.

Until the very end, Padron remained loyal to his friends and his roots in the Cuban countryside.

“My father started the business with $600. One person rolled the cigars and he sold them at night,” said Jorge Padron, one of his four children and president of Padron Cigars.

The patriarch of the family was born in Consolacion del Sur in the western province of Pinar del Rio. His family, who came from the Canary Islands, worked in a tobacco farm in the Cuban region known as Vuelta-bajo, considered to be among the best tobacco areas in the world. Tobacco became Padron’s passion.

Padron left Cuba in 1961 for Madrid, so poor he had to beg on the streets of the Spanish capital. He quickly moved to New York, where he lived for a couple of months before moving to Miami.

In the 1970s, he opened a cigar factory in Nicaragua, still the source of much of the tobacco that Padron Cigars rolls into its cigars. The cigars are sold around the world as well as at its famed Little Havana store.

That factory burned down during Nicaragua’s civil war.

Padron returned to the island in 1979 with other Cuban exiles to speak with Fidel Castro’s government about political prisoners. The discussion led to the release of 3,600 political prisoners, including some who had spent nearly 20 years behind bars.

“My father went to Cuba with the goal of helping,” said Jorge Padron, adding that many of his father’s old friends were freed from prison as a result of his work.

Today, the Padron brand is recognized as one of the best in the world. It received the best cigar of the year prize, awarded by the magazine Cigar Aficionado, three times since 2004.