Daughters & Ryan might be a relatively new member of the pipe tobacco community. Still, they likely made one of the biggest and most important contributions to the world of smoking in recent history.
The company was founded in 2002 by Mark Ryan, who started as a manufacturer and distributor of roll your own tobacco. Later on, he expanded to pipes with his sets of pipe tobacco. Located in North Carolina, Daughters & Ryan have worked hard at perfecting themselves and their products.
In 2016, a branch of Daughters & Ryan, known as Coley Ryan Perique Tobacco, took home a Golden Leaf Award in the “BMJ most outstanding service to the industry” category for Perique tobacco. This service to the industry was Mark Ryan quite literally saving Perique tobacco from disappearing.
Perique tobacco is a way of processing tobacco that adds extra flavor to it. Perique is a widely used tobacco, as it is capable of enhancing the other tobaccos in a blend. It usually adds a nice, spicy flavor to the tobaccos that most smokers enjoy. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the farmers that made Perique were in dire straits. The storm caused massive devastation for the region where the tobacco is cultivated, and most of the farmers that grew it went out of business. As the last Perique growing group was about to go under, Ryan stepped up and purchased that company, saving Perique from going functionally extinct.
Ryan established new standards and practices for the growth and cultivation of Perique, safeguarding the tobacco to use in blends for many more generations to come.
In November 2020, Ryan sold a majority stake to Inter-Continental Trading USA. This is a new step for growth for the company and will be an exciting time where we might see new and exciting things from Daughters & Ryan.