This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years, and now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint.
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Uh This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on this show, including your stories. Send them to ouramericanstories.com. They're some of our favorites. And now, joining us is Drew Newman, the great-grandson of the founder of the oldest family-owned premium cigar company in the United States, to tell us the story of cigars in America.
Here's Drew with a story. Most people don't realize that the United States has a rich cigar. Tradition that dates back to the 1600s. The first crop of cigar tobacco was planted in the Virginia colony in 1612. And at the time of our American independence, every colony grew tobacco and many of our founding fathers, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were tobacco farmers.
100 years ago, Tampa was the cigar capital of the world. Tampa was known as Cigar City and there were 150 large cigar factories just like ours here in Tampa that made more than 500 million cigars by hand each year. just in Tampa. To give you some comparison, today there are approximately 300 million premium handmade cigars sold in the United States each year that are made in Central America and the Caribbean. But 100 years ago, One and a half times that amount was made just inside the city limits of Tampa.
But in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, many of these factories here in Tampa closed. And one by one, they moved their production overseas. to developing countries, primarily because the way we make cigars, it's so labor intensive that the labor savings of having overseas productions really help them lower their cost and be more efficient. And so, one by one, we realized as the other factories were closing that suddenly. My family and I had the last cigar factory left in the cigar city of Tampa.
And we're very proud to be here, very proud to continue the American cigar tradition. But doing so is at an added cost. Labor is more expensive, materials are more expensive, but we think it's worth it to keep the American cigar making tradition alive. We roll cigars today just like my great-grandfather did a hundred years ago. The process hasn't changed one bit.
It's slow. It's labor-intensive. And because we are dealing with nature, every single cigar is different. Generally speaking, it takes about three years and 300 pairs of hands to handcraft a single cigar. The process starts.
And the farms. Beautiful farms that are here in the United States are in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and here in Florida as well that grow beautiful cigar tobacco the same way. for generations. Farmers plant the seeds in a greenhouse and then transplant them into the field and after about 60 days the plants grow tall and thick and beautiful and green and lush and each leaf is picked off of those plants. And hung in a barn where the tobacco naturally wilts.
It dries out, it loses its humidity, it crumples up a bit. And then from that point, the tobacco is taken down leaf by leaf, put into bales, and then sent to be fermented naturally. And all we're doing with these natural leaves of tobacco that are grown is simply putting them into piles. We put them into big piles of about a thousand pounds each and add a little bit of water. And Mother Nature combines the water with the tobacco, and the leaves get warm.
And as they get warm, the natural ammonia in the leaves. Releases from the tobacco and what's left is the beautiful aroma and taste of natural tobacco leaves. That process of natural fermentation is slow. It takes roughly eight months of simply letting the leaves sit in the pile, turning the pile every eight days so they have an even fermentation. And then finally, we get to have leaves that are thin, that are silky, that are smooth, that are beautiful, that we can then gently roll into cigars.
The cigar rolling process is really interesting. I like to compare it to wine because we make cigars just like the great winemakers make blends of red wine. What we do as cigar makers is we take different leaves grown on different plants and different farms in different years and we blend them together to create unique and different tastes. Then a single Tobacco plant grown on a farm, you can have 40, 50, 60 different grades of tobacco because some leaves are longer.
Some are shorter.
Some are thicker, some are thinner. The leaves near the top of the plant get more sun, so they have more nutrients, so they taste stronger. The leaves at the bottom are thinner and they have fewer nutrients, and they burn better. And so it's our job as cigar makers to understand these natural variations in leaves that are grown, blend them together, harness this natural variation, and create unique blends that consumers like. None of this is written down.
There's no school for cigar making, there are no rule books, it's simply a tradition that's been passed down from generation to generation to generation that we are working very hard to maintain. And great job as always by Joey bringing us that story and the production. Superb is always an especial thanks to Drew Newman. Whose great-grandfather was the founder of the oldest family-owned cigar company in the United States. By the way, be sure to visit the J.C.
Newman factory, El Rillot, with your family. That's in the Tampa region if you're ever in the area vacationing or heck, you're on your way to Disney. And you're passing through, they have some great exhibits and loads of activities for your family to enjoy. The story of American cigars as told to us by Drew Newman, the great-grandson of the oldest cigar maker in the country, here. on our American store.
Lee Habib here, and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or want to hear again can be found there daily. Again, please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us keep these great American stories coming. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans.
It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues.
Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected.
That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced. NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at Let's Get RealaboutskinCancer.com. Uh You've watched racing.
Now get behind the wheel. At Kaizen Autosport Racing School at VIR, professional race drivers teach you how to drive faster, safer, and with more confidence on one of America's legendary racetracks. Never driven on track? We'll get you started. Already experienced, we'll take you to the next level.
Ready to race? Earn your competition license and learn real wheel-to-wheel racecraft. Stop watching, start driving. Go to racevir.com. That's racevir.com.
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