My Father

José ‘Pepin’ Garcia, known around the world as “Pepin”, is the most famous cigar maker to emerge from Cuba. He began making cigars when he was 11 in the province of Villa Clara, Cuba, where he always believed cigars rolled here were of superior construction and quality to those made in Havana.

In 2002, Pepin was in his fifties when he left Cuba an accomplished cigar roller, where he had been working on some of Cuba’s best-known brands, including: Montecristo, Cohiba and Romeo y Julieta, as well as being responsible for training hundreds of budding rollers to craft these famous cigars. He decided to emigrate to the USA with his son, Jaime, to join his daughter Janny in Miami. She had decided to move to Miami in 1997 and was instrumental in running My Father Cigars with her father as well as Jaime. Now in his seventies, Pepin’s success producing cigars for the U.S. market massively surpassed his achievements in Cuba and is a great example of the American dream.

Pepin’s first cigar making experience in the U.S. was a tiny operation in Miami’s Little Havana neighbourhood with under a dozen cigar rollers. Just like many Cuban people before him, he had to start from scratch but his confidence as a cigar maker never failed - He just needed the opportunity!

The first cigars Pepin made in Miami were for Tatuaje cigars for brand owner Pete Johnson who launched his cigar range in 2003. Tatuaje were praised by all the critics and the Garcia family were soon challenged to keep up with demand. It was around this time that the first Don Pepin Garcia cigars were released too.

The My Father brand was actually created by Pepin’s son, Jaime, who blended and developed the cigars, intended to surprise his father by creating a new line. Jaime made sure the rollers kept his secret and had them make prototypes to create the perfect cigar for his father, but Pepin discovered what he was up to. After demanding samples of the cigar to choose for himself, Pepin was impressed and decided the My Father name was a great term for the parent company to be called. Pepin and Jaime oversee the factory and growing network of tobacco farms in Nicaragua while Janny plays an important role travelling around the country and managing the sales team for My Father Cigars.

The Garcia family first opened a factory in Nicaragua in 2007, due to this they were able to increase production from 2 million cigars per year to 5 million and their goal at the time was to make 7 million. To achieve this goal they needed more than just a factory, they opened a whole Industrial park in Esteli, Nicaragua covering several acres. They started with just a box factory, then a warehouse for preparing tobacco was built and finally a rolling gallery was opened. In 2009, they started producing cigars there and easily reached their goal of 7 million cigars a year!

Their modern facilities are immaculate and fully equipped to sort, ferment, and age tobacco before the cigars are handcrafted by hundreds of highly skilled rollers. The finished cigars are then aged for a longer period before they’re packaged in boxes made onsite and shipped to retailers around the world. Controlling their cigars from seed to cigar leaves the factory is critical to maintaining a high level of quality control.

The Garcias own farms throughout Nicaragua including: Esteli, Jalapa and Condega, where they grow their own binder, filler and wrapper crops. They also use their contacts in the industry to be able to source prized wrappers from the most desirable fields in the Connecticut River Valley, San Andres Valley and Ecuador. 
In 2022, they made over 20 million cigars due to the surge in demand that began in 2020. Due to the popularity and consistency - they show no signs of slowing down and their state of the art warehouse ensures they’re equipped to produce even more cigars in the future.

Throughout the fast growth of My Father Cigars, the Garcia family have kept close to their Cuban cigar-making traditions. Despite the cost, time and effort involved, their tobacco receives triple fermentation. The cigars are also rolled according to the entubado method - this is where the filler tobacco is rolled into individual tubes, allowing for greater airflow and for more tobacco to go into each cigar. Pepin once experimented with a tobacco deveining machine which helps with de-stemming cigars. He realised that this machine was taking jobs away from the people that needed them so he sold the machine which helped 60 people stay employed.

In 2012, the My Father Flor de las Anillas cigar won cigar of the year in Cigar Aficionado with a 96 rating and then in 2015 they won again with the 97 rated My Father Le Bijou 1922. More of the My Father range has also appeared in the top 25 cigars of the year. 

Click here to view the range of My Father Cigars

Written by Oliver Partington