Cigar Houses
Drew Estate: From a New York Kiosk to La Gran Fabrica in Estelí
Two college friends started out selling cigars from a kiosk in the World Trade Center. With ACID, Liga Privada and Undercrown they changed the image of the cigar for a new generation.
Logos belong to their brands and appear here only to identify them.
For decades the premium cigar had a serious, traditional image. Drew Estate came along to break it, with odd names, loud boxes and an attitude closer to street culture than to the gentlemen’s club. At the same time it made some of the most respected cigars in Nicaragua.
A kiosk in the World Trade Center
The company was born in New York in the mid-1990s. Most sources say 1996. It was founded by two college fraternity brothers, Jonathan Drew and Marvin Samel, and their first point of sale was a tiny kiosk, about 16 square feet, in Manhattan’s World Trade Center.
In 1998 Jonathan Drew moved to Estelí, Nicaragua, with little money and the idea of making their own cigars.
ACID and La Gran Fabrica
Their first brand was La Vieja Habana, but the one that made them famous was ACID, an infused cigar made with a process the company has always kept secret. ACID drew in many people who had never smoked a cigar.
In July 2007 the company brought together production that had been spread across some nine workshops. That is how La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate was born in Estelí, today one of the best-known factories in the country.
Liga Privada and Undercrown
The other Drew Estate, the one for demanding aficionados, has its own name: Liga Privada. The project was driven by Steve Saka, then the company’s president, who wanted a cigar he would want to smoke himself. The No. 9 is named for the ninth blend he tried, the one he picked as his favorite. It began as an almost boutique cigar around 2007, and sources disagree on when it became regular production.
Demand for Liga Privada was so high that, according to Drew Estate, in 2010 the rollers were asked to stop smoking them. They created a blend of their own to replace them, and that is how Undercrown was born.
A new chapter
Steve Saka retired from the company in 2013. In 2014 Drew Estate was acquired by Swisher International, a family-owned tobacco company based in Jacksonville, Florida.
Why it matters
Drew Estate brought the cigar to a generation that didn’t see itself in leather-and-wood lounges. But with Liga Privada and Undercrown it also proved that irreverence and serious craft can go together. Few houses have a catalog that runs from an infused cigar to one of the most respected Nicaraguan cigars on the market.
Several dates in this story change depending on the source. We say so where they disagree.