The words El Septimo, translated from Spanish to English, mean “The Seventh.” When we consider what a freighted numeral 7 is, so imbued with mystery and meaning across cultures, we can see how it truly amounts to a marketer’s dream. To some people, the number 7 symbolizes the seventh day of creation, when God rested; to others, it calls forth hopes and thoughts of good luck. In Turkish, Seven means “loving one,” and there are couples who choose that name for a child. (They even did a Seinfeld about that.) Seven is, in many ways, the world’s shared feel-good number.
El Septimo, the ultra-premium cigar company that carries the numeral 7 on its branding, and on its cigar bands, had already been making lovers of the leaf feel good in European and Middle Eastern markets for a number of years when the company’s present owner, Zaya Younan, was introduced to them in 2018 at a stately dinner in Saudi Arabia. Says Younan’s daughter Alexandra, “My father was there for an oil project, and King Abdullah II of Jordan was sharing these wonderful cigars my father had never encountered before.” Younan himself recalls, “The king gave me my first El Septimo, a Double Shot, and I was mesmerized by the quality and the experience.”
Younan claims he’d never had it in his mind to own a cigar company until he got acquainted with El Septimo. “One day my wife wanted an El Septimo, and I didn’t have one,” he says, “and she refused to smoke anything else. That’s when I realized how powerful of a brand it was, that when people didn’t have it, they would refuse to smoke entirely. And that’s when I decided to buy the brand”—an acquisition he completed in 2020, bringing El Septimo to the American market for the first time. Younan has been growing El Septimo’s presence in tobacco shops ever since, and now sees his cigars in more than 900 U.S. retailers—globally, in 2,000 shops across 25 countries.
Zaya S. Younan, 60, Assyrian Christian by birth, immigrated to America from his native Iran at age 13, traveling alone with only $25 in his pocket and a Bible. He then got busy making himself into the quintessential American success story, starting with manual labor in Chicago and eventually going on to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign. Today Younan is able to bring deep pockets and real staying power to the El Septimo brand. The Younan Group, which he founded in 2003 and runs from a gorgeous home in Woodland Hills, California, is a global private equity firm with assets under management surpassing $6 billion. Younan owns office properties in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Denver and Phoenix. He has a number of exclusive tourist destinations in Europe, including four luxury golf courses in France. And his vineyards— Château la Croix Younan and Château Zaya—produce award-winning vintages in the Saint-Émilion Grand Cru appellation of France’s Bordeaux region. And we haven’t yet even mentioned his cognacs. From such a company we might well expect an extra measure of care that the cigars it produces would fit readily in the ultra-premium category. El Septimo rolls more than 2 ½ million cigars per year at three Costa Rican factories, and the 200 rollers it keeps busy have more than garnered the company a reputation for superlative quality.
While it is true that many of El Septimo’s 40-plus cigar blends are on the pricey side (see our review of the $70 El Septimo Bomba Orange in this issue), not every El Septimo cigar carries a steep price tag. Prices run the gamut, starting at only $9 per stick, and ranging up to the company’s most expensive offering, the $125 Vartan the Dragon, which is debuting at this year’s PCA trade show. So customers new to the brand can begin modestly and just let the El Septimo mystique draw them in to ever-more sumptuous fare.
Both Younan’s daughter Alexandra, who serves as Younan Company’s Director of Marketing & Branding, and El Septimo east coast Brand Ambassador Franklin Kleckner, independently remarked that what sets El Septimo Cigars apart is the company’s fresh, innovative approach—both to blending and to retail. About the latter, Kleckner says, “We want to be a high-end brand that offers a more intimate, intentional relationship with retailers.” About the former, Alexandra Younan says, “We do not blend and make cigars the same way others do. Our blenders, testers, and quality inspectors come from five different countries. This is why El Septimo is so special. We do everything differently.” Kleckner says the El Septimo approach to blending is distinctly “reverse-engineered.” He explains, “We blend around the filler, not the wrapper. We use all top-grade tobacco in the fillers, and put the wrapper in a supporting role.”
Tobacconist David Meyer, proprietor with his wife Renée of Milan Tobacconists in Roanoke, Virginia, says he was introduced to the El Septimo brand by Kleckner, with whom he already had a good relationship. (Kleckner came to El Septimo from Rocky Patel, and was on good terms with the Meyers.) “Franklin left me some samples, and I was impressed,” says Meyer. “So now I carry eight different facings in two El Septimo lines—Sacred Arts and Emperor. They are very expensive because companies that grow their own tobaccos and roll their own cigars and age their tobaccos for a long time are inevitably going to price their cigars as luxury items. But still, El Septimo sells pretty well for me, and I find myself ordering more of them every month or so.”
Persons attending the 2024 PCA Convention & International Trade Show (March 22–25 in Las Vegas) can visit the El Septimo booth for a look at the latest from this innovative company. Last year, three $5.5 million El Septimo tabletop lighters were on offer. This year’s cigar introductions go beyond the previously mentioned Vartan the Dragon (named after El Septimo’s No. 1 retailer, Vartan Seferian at Ambassador Fine Cigars), and will include a new cigar line, the Culinary Series, available in four vitolas and priced retail in the decidedly terrestrial range of $9 to $16.
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Contact information for El Septimo’s American headquarters, and for all U.S. regional brand ambassadors, can be found at el-septimo.com.
– Photography courtesy of El Septimo. Story by William C. Nelson.
This story first appeared in PCA The Magazine, Volume 1, 2024. To receive a copy of this magazine you must be a current member of PCA. Join or renew today at premiumcigars.org/membership.