New Times In Cuba
Most cigar aficionados dream of smoking a cigar in Cuba. It’s the birthplace of the handmade cigar industry, the country that gave us Cohiba and Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, Partagás, Punch and so many more famous and superb brands. It’s a country of stunning beauty and considerable mystery, one teeming with energy and music. It’s also a place of inherent sadness, shackled by a six-decades-old embargo and one where its 11 million citizens live without the freedoms and comforts so many of us take for granted. The editors of Cigar Aficionado have been traveling to Cuba for the entire history of the magazine, and we know it well. In fact, it was a visit by editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken in 1991 that inspired him to create this magazine.
But things have changed, and the travel scene is significantly different than in our previous reports. of our editorial team spent a week in Cuba starting in February, to analyze what has changed in the country, what has stayed the same and what cigar lovers can expect on their next visit.
It was only eight years ago, the spring of 2016, when President Barack Obama relaxed travel restrictions between the United States and Cuba, igniting an American tourism boom to the country. Four million international visitors came to Cuba in 2016, according to World Bank data, and even more followed over the next two years, with a record 4.7 million tourists going there in 2018. American planes began flying routes to Cuban cities, hotels were filled with new visitors and a weekend trip to Havana suddenly became nearly as easy as jetting off to London or St. Barths. Many of the restrictions on Americans buying Cuban cigars were removed, allowing travelers to bring back boxes of Cohibas and Montecristos (while continuing to prohibit their sale in the United States and their import via the Internet or mail order) from their international travels. Yes, the embargo was still in place, but it was the closest the two countries had come to normalized relations since the 1950s. For lovers of Cuba and Cuban cigars, it was an extraordinary time.
It didn’t last long. President Donald Trump, who was inaugurated in 2017, announced he would reverse Obama-era Cuba policy in his first year in office. In September 2017, he announced new sanctions on Cuba. Three years later, his policies ended the importation of cigars and severely cut back Americans’ ability to travel and stay on the island. In 2019, the Trump istration sharply reduced the number of direct flights between the United States and Cuba, making travel to the island harder still. Essentially, the changes brought travel back to the pre-2016 days. President Joe Biden has done nothing to bring the countries closer, keeping the restrictions of his predecessor in place and keeping travel to Cuba an arduous process for most Americans.
Cuba’s economy is ailing in the midst of what some have called its greatest crisis since the end of aid from the Soviet Union in the 1990s, three decades ago. Food, never in abundant supply, is harder to get than before, with the Cuban government asking the United Nations for subsidized powdered milk to sustain its infants. Gasoline has soared in price while dwindling in supply, and lines from stations stretch for city blocks, reminding visitors of a certain age of the American oil crisis of the 1970s. In December, Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel said that Cuba might need to cut back on its traditional monthly ration of food and other basics given to locals. Public protests, all but unthinkable during the reign of the Castros, have recently taken place, with Cubans taking to the streets asking for more.
The pandemic was hard on Cuba. Tourism began to drop under the Trump-era restrictions, but it fell off a cliff due to Covid-19. Only 1 million tourists came to Cuba when the world shut down in 2020, then plummeted to 375,000 in 2021. It has begun to come back a bit, with 2.4 million people visiting the island in 2023.
They come for Cuba’s beauty, its intrigue and its cigars. A visit to Cuba is much like going back in time, looking upon American cars from the 1950s, iring the distinctive architecture, watching the waves from the blue Caribbean crashing against the Malecón. For cigar lovers, there is no other city quite like it, a city with nearly a dozen exceptional cigar shops, most of them ideal for sitting and smoking. Cuba’s dining scene is exciting, if you know where to go, and many outdoor dining areas welcome your cigar.
While many restaurants closed during the pandemic, including some old favorites of Cigar Aficionado, new ones have opened. We found several vibrant new places on the trip, including a gorgeous new hotel with a cigar-friendly al fresco eatery, serving stunning Italian food. The way to pay for these delights has changed—read on for the new rules.
The country was hammered by a powerful hurricane that hit Cuba’s most important tobacco lands, so we drove out to Pinar del Río to report on the massive rebuilding effort. There we met with a hardy and persistent farmer who has worked these lands for 40 years, starting when he was 14 years old.
We stopped in virtually every cigar shop in Havana to give you a full report on the increases in pricing on Cuban cigars to show you what to expect when you shop here. And as Cigar Aficionado has rated Cuban cigars for its entire history, stretching back to 1992, we tell you the ones that have scored the best and which are the best buys right now.
It’s our hope that this extensive cover package guides you on your next journey to Cuba or inspires you to take your first one. We sat down over cigars with Craig Anderson, an experienced American traveler who has been there plenty of times. “The one thing I will tell people, if you’re not a cigar smoker, one trip here is all you need,” he says. “And if you are a cigar smoker? Perfect place.”
Cuba calls to all of us at the magazine. We believe it will call to you as well.
Getting There
To legally travel to Cuba as an American, your visit should fall into one of 12 categories allowed by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (known as OFAC). This includes family visits, journalistic, religious or professional activities and research. Visit ofac.treasury.gov for more information. If you weren’t born in Cuba and your visit falls into one of those permitted categories, you can simply buy a tourist card via the airline on which you’re flying, which will most likely be departing from Miami International Airport. American Airlines has the most options, with as many as eight flights a day. A more expensive option, and one that somewhat limits your activities but takes away the guesswork, is to go on an organized trip set up by an organization that handles for the Cuban people. These operations used to be known as “people-to-people” visits. U.S. law allows you to purchase and consume Cuban cigars and rum while abroad, but you’re no longer allowed to bring any of them back home from a trip, whether it’s to Cuba or any other country.
