This year is already shaping up to be another banner year for the Garcia family and My Father Cigars. The company will introduce three new items at the 2024 PCA Trade Show and will soon release a celebratory line, first presented at last year’s show, that is now finally ready for distribution ahead of the PCA Convention.
Retailers attending the March trade show will discover a new size in the highly rated El Centurion H-2K-CT Box Pressed series. A 6 1/2 x 58 Toro Grande will be added to the existing vitolas, continuing the company’s trend toward large ring gauge cigars. The line features a hybrid Connecticut-grown Habana 2000 seed wrapper, lending intense flavor and aroma to the medium bodied cigars.
Since acquiring rights to the Fonseca brand in 2019, Jose and Jaime Garcia reworked the former Dominican stalwart into a medium-plus bodied all-Nicaraguan puro. For 2024, Fonseca by My Father will add a Mexican San Andrés wrapper to the blend of Nicaraguan fillers and binder, grown on the Garcias’ farms. According to VP of sales Jose Ortega, “We decided to do something unique with it. The current Fonseca has a Corojo 99 wrapper, so we decided to use a San Andres Mexican wrapper. So we’re going to offer the Fonseca Corojo 99 wrapper, and its ‘brother,’ the Fonseca Edicion San Andres.” Both versions will be available in the four existing vitolas of Robusto 5×50, Cedros 6 1/4 x 52, Toro Gordo 6 x 60 and Toro Grande 6 1/2 x 56.
Last year’s My Father TAA Exclusive, the Don Pepin Vintage, will now be available in full release, debuting at this year’s PCA Trade Show. As Ortega explains, “The name Vintage came from the artwork. There was another Don Pepin, back in the early 1900s. Someone gifted us the image, so we decided to create a Vintage line based on the artwork. We kept it true to the original, but we put Pepin’s picture where the old picture was.”
The line will be presented in five sizes: a 5 3/4 x 48 Corona Gorda, a 4 1/2 x 50 Petite Robusto, a 5 x 54 Robusto, a 6 x 52 Toro and a 6 x 60 Toro Gordo. The Vintage band is a throwback, featuring the name Pepin in a classic font. It graces a Nicaraguan Corojo 99 wrapper, encasing the Garcias’ own Nicaraguan filler and binder.
Last year’s PCA Convention saw the introduction of a rare collaboration by My Father Cigars and Pete Johnson’s Tatuaje brand, honoring their 20-year working relationship. That cigar is now being released, in advance of this year’s trade show. The Limited Edition project is named La Union, a trademark owned by the Garcias, and features a 7 1/4 x 50 Prominente Especial with a Cuban-style 109 tapered head.
Each humidor-quality lacquered box will contain 40 cigars—20 blended by My Father and 20 of the same shape blended by Tatuaje. Johnson’s cigars will feature a Corojo 99 wrapper, while the Garcias will offer an Ecuador Habano cover leaf. All cigars share the same fillers and binders, grown on the Garcias’ farms. There will be 1,500 of these black lacquer boxes released prior to the trade show. At a future date there will be 1,500 red lacquer boxes made available for a total of 3,000 boxes. In the red box version, the Tatuaje blend will have an Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, contrasted by the Garcias’ selection of Connecticut USA Broadleaf. Each box also contains a special Xikar Xi1 cutter with the brands’ respective logos. The La Union Prominente Especial will retail for $60.00, exclusive of state and local taxes.
An interesting symbolic detail is the cigars’ foot band, which shows an image of Johnson’s and Jaime Garcia’s hands shaking, both embraced from above by the hand of Don Pepin himself, a representation of the union between the two cigar-making icons.
One more feather in the Garcias’ cap came early this year as a 94 point rating for the My Father The Judge Grand Robusto, a blocky 5 x 60 box-pressed Nicaraguan blend with an Ecuador Sumatra wrapper leaf. The medium-full Grand topped all entries in its category, and was described as “Sweet and rich…with a lush draw that delivers warm notes of toast, wood and a big, nutty finish.”
The Judge series was twice honored as a Top 25 Cigar Of The Year, and has an intriguing backstory. The brand was named for a cigar store’s customer who was a judge. He had a favorite cigar and would never try anything else. Ortega recalls that “One day I managed to get him to buy a box of our cigars, a 2010 Limited Edition. Since then he’s opened up to our other lines, including The Judge, since we told him that we were going to name the brand for him.”
There’s an interesting footnote to The Judge shape selection. When the line debuted in 2016, there were two vitolas, a 5 x 60 Grand Robusto and a 6 x 56 Toro. In 2017 the 6 x 52 Toro Fino was added. Three years later a new, narrower shape, the 5 5/8 x 46 Corona Gorda was introduced. Here’s how this relatively slender size came to be, per Ortega: “Later on we came out with a Corona Gorda, a 46, because that’s what Jaime’s son Jandy likes to smoke. During a sales meeting in Nicaragua, we saw him smoking a very odd size in The Judge. He had them made for him because he doesn’t like the big ring gauge. He brought a bundle out and gave it to all the sales guys, and every guy there said, ‘We gotta have this!’ It opened up a whole new group of smokers for us in that brand.”
Jandy Garcia represents the third generation of Garcias in the family’s cigar manufacturing business. The youngest Garcia, who started out in the sales office but gravitated to the production side in the factory, has been mastering every aspect of the cigar-making process. As Ortega tells it, “He represents the best of Pepin and the best of Jaime. The company’s longevity is secure with him. He’s the next superstar in the industry.”
In addition to all of the above referenced new line extensions and brands, My Father has also recently expanded its popular Jaime Garcia Reserve Especial series. Three new shapes have been added to Connecticut Broadleaf-wrapped blend. Jose Ortega enthusiastically described the line extension this way: “We took it to a whole other level. We introduced a 7 x 70; a Corona Grande, which is a 6 1/4 x 48; and we made a Figurado, a 5 5/8 x 48 x 52. It’s a beautiful cigar. The Jaime Garcia is hands down one of our top brands, so if you’re going to go out on a limb and try new sizes, you want to do it with a line that has a very strong following, and Jaime Garcia is one of those. If I could produce 100,000 more cigars of that line alone I would sell all of them.”
That seems to sum up the popularity and sales appeal of the ever-growing portfolio of My Father Cigars. Consider their game upped.
– Photography courtesy of My Father Cigars. Story by Larry Wagner.
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.