One hundred and thirty years of continuous operation is an impressive feat for any business, particularly a U.S. cigar maker. With numerous 5-, 10- and 20-year anniversaries being celebrated by increasingly more cigar manufacturers, the number 130 is particularly noteworthy, even for Chris Topper, CEO of Topper Cigars. In fact, Topper didn’t even realize that 2024 was the company’s 130th anniversary!
The brand had been employing the slogan “Since 1896” until one day when Topper received an email from his good friend, Bill Finck Jr. of Finck Cigar Company. It read: “Check out this link. There’s a letter from 1921 from your great-grandfather.” Topper went on eBay and bought the letter. “It was like buying an old baseball card that someone had kept in its cover. I was enamored with the letterhead because back in its day, it was like art,” says Topper. To verify its authenticity, he matched the signature to one belonging to his great-grandfather, which was reproduced on the inside lid of the box of Topper’s 120th anniversary cigar.
What he discovered next came as a shock. “I looked at the top of the letter, and dead-center in the middle of the letterhead, it said ‘Established 1894.’” Conducting further research in historical documents from the town, Topper discovered that the family had moved to McSherrystown, Pennsylvania, in 1893 “to learn the art of cigar making,” per the documentation. Topper adds that in those days, McSherrystown “had 1,800 people and 20 cigar factories. So it was somewhat of a cigar mecca in its time.”
Topper’s father joined the business in the early 1950s. He had degrees in law and accounting, but once Topper’s grandfather became ill, his father was compelled to become active in several facets of the operation. He was in charge of production but also took on the sales and marketing. While the McSherrystown factory continued to hand-roll cigars, Topper’s father moved to Connecticut to have greater access to the Tri-State area market. By the time the embargo on Cuban tobacco was enacted in the early 1960s, Topper Cigars was down to about 20 rollers whose average age was about 70. That lack of labor force, combined with the shortage of Cuban filler for the cigars, led to the eventual closing of the Pennsylvania factory. After that, production was switched to machine-making cigars in Connecticut.
But although the vast majority of Topper Cigars are machine-produced, Topper has almost always made cigars by hand as well. Chris Topper offered this explanation: “We’ve been in business 130 years. There’s probably only been about 15–20 years when we only made machine-made cigars.” Since the early 1980s, Topper Danli has been hand-rolled in Honduras. Four front marks—Robusto, Toro, Belicoso, and Churchill—are rolled with premium short filler in shapes that appeal to today’s modern smokers. The more traditional Broadleaf-wrapped vitolas—Breva, Corona Grande, Ebony, and Perfecto—are made both by hand in the Dominican Republic and by machine in Connecticut, offering smokers a choice for a nominal cost difference. The blends are identical.
When Chris Topper graduated from college in 1990, it was before the cigar boom, and it didn’t seem that the cigar business was growing, so his father encouraged him to seek employment outside of the industry. Topper adds, “We didn’t think the direction of the industry was a positive one at that point, but if things changed, we could revisit it. So I got married, bought a house, and worked for a financial services company for four years.” But in 1993, things indeed began to change, with the advent of cigar dinners, celebrity smokers, and cigar publications, and in 1994, Chris started working with his father at Topper Cigars.
While most Topper Cigars are still made by machine, Topper has also produced long-filler, hand-made premium cigars to connote various anniversaries, and it was with that in mind that Chris Topper sought to commemorate his newly discovered 130th anniversary with a uniquely blended, truly premium offering. The cigars debuted at the 2024 PCA Trade Show and Convention to an enthusiastic reception.
Topper realized that many of today’s premium cigar smokers appreciate a fine cigar but still want to keep an eye on their budget. “My idea for the 1894 was to make something reasonably priced but also have the more modern sizes, bigger ring gauges, and traditional hand-made shapes,” he says. For this project, Topper turned to their hand-made supplier, De Los Reyes Cigars, in the Dominican Republic.
To honor the brand’s roots as a manufacturer of cigars hand-made with Cuban long-fillers and Connecticut Broadleaf wrappers, Topper conceived of the idea to flip the components, utilizing U.S.-grown Habano seed tobacco for the wrappers and Dominican-grown Broadleaf seed for the fillers. In this way, he was able to put a modern twist on the traditional formula. The Habano seed wrappers are grown in a little-known area of Pennsylvania called Sugar Valley, perhaps accounting for the sweetness in the blend. The region seems well suited to producing premium quality wrapper leaf.
Most of Topper’s previous commemorative cigars were limited productions made from stockpiles of aged tobaccos. But Topper 1894 is a regular production line crafted from tobaccos specifically cultivated for this line. As a result, Topper is able to produce high-end cigars at affordable prices. The line consists of three sizes: Corona, 6 x 44, $8.50 MSRP; Robusto, 5 x 50, $8.50 MSRP; and Toro, 6 x 54 $10.50 MSRP.
The Topper 1894 was to begin shipping in late March or early April of this year, so the line is still very new, and reviews have yet to proliferate. But if the samples received for this review are any indication, Topper Cigars will have successfully transitioned from a company known primarily for machine-made cigars to the latest entrant into the world of high-grade, premium handmades. And with 130 years of success behind them, the future looks very bright indeed.
For the full portfolio of Topper Cigars, visit toppercigars.com.
– Story by Larry Wagner. Photography courtesy of Topper Cigars.
This story first appeared in PCA The Magazine, Volume 4, 2024. To receive a copy of this magazine you must be a current member of PCA. Join or renew today at premiumcigars.org/membership.