Cigar Houses
Plasencia: Five Generations Who Started Over Three Times
From Vuelta Abajo in 1865 to Nicaragua and Honduras. The Plasencia family lost its land in two revolutions, became one of the world's great tobacco growers, and now puts its own name on the band.
Logos belong to their brands and appear here only to identify them.
For a long time the Plasencia name was inside a huge number of cigars without ever appearing on the band. The family grew the tobacco and rolled for other brands. Only in the last decade did it begin signing its own cigars, and it did so with a story few houses can tell.
Cuba, 1865
According to the family, it all began in 1865, when Don Eduardo Plasencia came from the Canary Islands to Vuelta Abajo, in Pinar del Río, Cuba’s most famous tobacco region. In 1898 his nephew, Sixto Plasencia, expanded the business.
For almost a century the family grew tobacco in Cuba. After the 1959 revolution its farms were confiscated, and in the 1960s the Plasencias left the island with nothing.
Nicaragua, Honduras and Nicaragua again
The family rebuilt in Nicaragua, growing tobacco once more. With the Sandinista revolution in the late 1970s it lost its land and facilities again. It was the second time it had lost everything.
Nestor Plasencia Sr., born in Cuba in 1949, settled in Honduras and started over. In the mid-1980s the family began making cigars. When things changed in Nicaragua in the early 1990s, it went back there too, opening a factory in Ocotal in 1992.
The giant that worked for others
Over the years the Plasencias became one of the largest tobacco growers and cigar makers in the world. They have factories in Danlí, Honduras, and in Estelí and Ocotal, Nicaragua, and make tens of millions of cigars a year. Published figures range from 30 to 45 million depending on the source.
Much of that production was made for other brands, including Rocky Patel and Alec Bradley, among many more. Plenty of aficionados have smoked Plasencia tobacco without knowing it.
The fifth generation and their own brand
The fifth generation, led by Nestor Andrés Plasencia with other members of the family, decided to put the family name on the band. Around 2016 and 2017 the Plasencia brand was born, distributed in the United States as Plasencia 1865.
The cigar names tell the family’s story. Alma Fuerte, an all-Nicaraguan blend, has vitolas called Eduardo I and Sixto I, honoring the founder and his nephew. The Cosecha line carries the harvest number counted from 1865: Cosecha 146 and Cosecha 151 mark the family’s 146th and 151st harvests.
Why it matters
The Plasencias are proof that the Central American cigar has deep Cuban roots. They lost their land in two revolutions and still ended up growing the tobacco for much of the industry. When their name finally reached the band, it came with 150 years of craft behind it.
Some dates differ between sources. Part of the earliest history comes from the family itself.