The famed Turrent family, renowned for generations of growing excellent cigar tobacco, have taken the cigar manufacturing operation totally inhouse for the Casa Turrent brand. Five generations of farming and manufacturing Mexican tobacco culminates in these fine blends.
Casa Turrent’s cigars are named in respect to the dynasty of passionate tobacco farmers. The Serie 1901, 1942, and 1973 each take their names from the birth years of three Turrents, going back to current president, Alejandro Turrent’s, grandfather. But the whole story stretches further still, with Alejandro’s great great grandfather starting this tradition, beginning to grow tobacco in 1880—this year being another inspiration for naming one of Casa Turrent’s illustrious cigars.
Now the largest tobacco growing operation in Mexico, the Turrent name spread with the famous Te-Amo, which Turrent began manufacturing in 1963 under the leadership of Alberto Turrent, Alejandro’s father. Already an established staple of Mexican cigars, opening distribution to the US quickly made Te-Amo one the country's most popular brands—garnering significant embrace in New York City where they were often referred to as the “taxi-driver’s cigar”.
With no lack of pride in the Te-Amo on its own merits, Alejandro was coming to the stage knowing he wanted something else—an elevated cigar, and a defining contribution to his chapter of this grand story. Was inheriting a legacy of praised tobacco manufacturing about sustaining what was already there, or growing—finding new places to flourish?
“That was okay,” says Turrent regarding the popularity of Te-Amo. “Connoisseurs smoked Te-Amo. But I wanted to raise the level of our prestige overall with a first-class cigar and I knew that we had the right stuff to do it.”
Casa Turrent Cigars is the answer to that calling.
Turrent recognized the opportunity to craft exceptional, unique blends as trading barriers that once constrained the industry loosened. At the time of Te-Amo’s introduction, foreign tobacco couldn’t be used in Mexican cigars. The passing of NAFTA granted Turrent an opportunity to get creative in new ways.
Still filled, bound, and wrapped with the infamous Turrent Mexican tobacco, a bit of Nicaraguan filler buttresses the blend, delightfully contorting any preconceived limitations we’ve impressed upon what a Mexican cigar must be.
“It’s different from what we’ve made previously,” says Turrent. “A lot of this tobacco has been grown especially for the Casa Turrent brand. San Andrés tobacco has a great taste and combustion but slacks strength and body. That’s why we added Nicaraguan tobacco. It has that strength, that punch. Because of that, the two tobaccos make a great combination.”
Grab a box of any of our wonderful Casa Turrent cigars and share in this unfolding chapter in cigar history.