Pedro Romar Molina and Liz Janice López de la Rosa combine experience, business vision, and respect for tradition to bring to life Galiz and Monte y Mística, two offerings that seek to connect Puerto Rican tobacco with new generations of smokers.
Liz’s journey within the premium cigar industry is already widely known, having led La Resistencia for Puerto Rican tobacco for nearly a decade alongside José Gabriel Cruz Ayala, “El Chan,” until his untimely passing in 2024. This forced her to take a pause, although she continued thinking about the new blends and projects that are now part of Molina & López Tabacalera.
For Romar, a native of San Juan, his relationship with tobacco is rooted in family memory. He carries with him a heritage tied to the island’s interior: Morovis and Orocovis, where his ancestors cultivated tobacco at a time when this was an everyday pursuit and curing barns were part of the landscape.
He was not a regular smoker, but as he approached the industry—more than simply learning about leaves, wrappers, binders, or fillers—he found in the cigar a way to reconnect with his roots. Having witnessed the shifts in Puerto Rican society, he recalls close-knit community ties and shared values.
Today, technology has transformed social dynamics; constant connectivity has brought the world closer, but it has also created new forms of distance. That is why a smoke is an opportunity to sit down, converse, and share: reclaiming those moments when people gathered around a table, without a screen as an intermediary.
Meeting Point
Trained in other fields, Romar found a professional path in restaurant management and developed the managerial vision he now brings to the venture he shares personally and professionally with Liz Janice—identifying needs, organizing resources, and executing projects.
Liz Janice’s return to the industry called for an entrepreneurial vision that would complement her technical expertise and product knowledge. Together with Romar, she forms a team in which each plays a distinct—yet equally vital—role in the new company, officially incorporated with the Puerto Rico Department of State on July 9, 2026. In addition to the island, its operations extend across the United States.
Far more than a routine formality, this incorporation represents “a declaration of intent”: to build a company with a defined corporate structure capable of growth, without repeating the common pitfall of entrepreneurs who end up personally handling production, sales, distribution, marketing, and management all at once.
Galiz Spirit: Evolution
The first product of this new chapter is Galiz Spirit, an established brand that retains its original blend—featuring tobaccos from Nicaragua and Ecuador—while introducing options that broaden the consumer experience. It offers three sweet-tip variations: the familiar brown sugar version, alongside new editions crafted with aged rum and whisky.
The initial strategy is to focus on a single vitola, the Robusto, rather than spreading resources thin across multiple formats; a practical, everyday size with strong acceptance in the local market.
Inspiring Mountain
The resurgence of Liz Janice’s career does not stop there. It brings with it the birth of Monte y Mística, a brand conceptually linked to nature, the earth, and ancestral heritage. It features three different tobacco expressions with flavor profiles crafted for different types of smokers. Variety, but with identity.
A Maduro version combines Nicaraguan tobaccos with a San Andrés wrapper, developing notes associated with coffee and chocolate; in the offering with an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper and tobaccos from Indonesia, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, the profile leans toward citrus and fruity notes; and the expression featuring a Nicaraguan Corojo wrapper, using tobaccos from that country, leads into the realm of pepper and cedar.
The defining premise of Monte y Mística is balance, as its medium strength is well-suited for a gathering or celebration, conversation among friends, or a quiet moment of relaxation. It also provides an approachable entry point for those venturing into the World of Tobacco.
As a strategy to position themselves in the premium segment, the couple decided to place their products within an accessible price range of $10 to $15, while maintaining the quality of the raw materials and the craftsmanship behind each stick.
While their workshop in Caguas is already up and running, distribution plans are advancing in partnership with Cándido Alfonso, founder of Entre Humos and Cigar Island, who will oversee both brands across Puerto Rico and the United States.
Future Outlook
Liz Janice and Romar affirm that their company seeks to help revive and strengthen the island’s cigar culture, which deserves to “reclaim its prominence on the international tobacco map,” while building a new narrative.
On a personal level, the creation of Molina & López Tabacalera—one of the few of its kind on the island—allows them not only to return to their roots, but to re-enter the industry thinking big to craft experiences that bridge territories, knowledge, and generations: a reconnection with the land and conversation, shared over fine smoke.
A Story in the Making
For Pedro Romar Molina, stepping into tobacco became an unexpected path back to his roots. Family memories of Morovis and Orocovis, of crops and curing barns, now find renewed expression in a commercial endeavor.
For Liz Janice López de la Rosa, it represents an opportunity to return to an art form she knows inside out, this time backed by an infrastructure that allows her to think big.
Perhaps that is the true essence of Monte y Mística and Galiz Spirit: it is not merely about blending tobaccos from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, or Ecuador, but about crafting an experience that bridges regions, knowledge, and generations.
In an age where so many conversations take place behind a screen, they are placing their bets once again on something as simple as sitting down with a cigar and talking. Because in the end, the true return may not only be that of Puerto Rican tobacco and one of the island’s few active cigar makers, but a return to the land, to conversation, and to the stories shared over fine smoke.
