Regarding a recent publication about an alleged betrayal of the Dominican cigar by Davidoff, we would like to express, from our European perspective, what every informed person of good faith knows.
Damien Bischoff
Member of the Asian Society, Paris, 1822
What betrayal are they talking about? If it was Davidoff who crowned the excellence of the premium Dominican cigar around the world, for God’s sake!
It is quite the opposite of what this article of hate and propaganda exudes: Davidoff is the only operating factory in Cuba that moved directly to the Dominican Republic in the late 1980s and early 1990s—a sign of Zino Davidoff breaking with the Cuban government.
Davidoff is the only brand that was selling cigars in Europe when only Cuban cigars were smoked there; even more, it is the only universal cigar brand that can put its name on a perfume or a cognac. A universal ultra-luxury brand 30 years ahead of others, on the level of Kering, LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), and others.
What betrayal?
Rather, it was Davidoff that put the Dominican cigar in global orbit. Dominican cigars were only smoked by Americans because Cuban cigars were banned in their country; the rest of the world—Europe, Asia, the Middle East, etc.—smoked only Cubans. The Madrid Agreement, as such, divided the world between those who had access to Cuban cigars and others to whom they were denied.
It was Davidoff that demonstrated the excellence of Dominican tobacco to the world alongside Juan Clemente—a brand by Frenchman Jean Clement, the first Dominican cigar sold in France and Japan, in addition to having invented the cigar foot band—when Davidoff was beginning to sell in Switzerland, England, Germany, Europe in general, Asia, and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, without a doubt, other brands produced in the Dominican Republic strengthened the presence of the Dominican cigar in the United States, but on a global level, no brand has done more for the Dominican cigar than Davidoff—none!
Davidoff was the global ambassador for the Dominican cigar when others didn’t sell a single cigar outside the United States. So how can anyone talk about betrayal toward the Dominican cigar?
Even better, Davidoff prepared Europe and the world to discover Dominican cigars and cigars from other terroirs by fighting for 30 years against a Cuban dominance that seemed like a monopoly, almost an unbreakable wall. The wall fell, and now 50 percent of the cigars smoked in Europe are non-Cuban.
So, who betrayed whom?
The entire tobacco industry owes a debt of gratitude, for his vision and accomplishments, to Zino Davidoff.
Perhaps only the blindness of ignorance, greed and profit, a lack of intellectual honesty, the forgetting of history, or bad faith are capable of producing and motivating such a rag of an opinion piece.
If we are going to talk about betrayal, it would rather be a major and unforgivable betrayal to the memory of the great Zino Davidoff. It would mean forgetting what he did for the Dominican cigar so that the Dominican Republic could shine as a land of premium cigar excellence, alongside historic and mythical Cuba in the minds of smokers worldwide.
*For Zino, Avo, Henke, and so many others.
