Quesada

The Quesada family has been in tobacco since the end of the nineteenth century, first in Cuba, then in the Dominican Republic, where it settled in the 1970s — before the wave that made the country the first destination of the premium cigar. That head start counts: when the great houses arrived, the Quesadas were already there, with their Santiago factory.

The house long worked in the shadows, producing for other brands as much as for its own, and cultivating a discretion that contrasts with the commercial exuberance of the trade. It is now run by the next generation and remains one of the few large Dominican houses still independent and family-held.

Its style follows the classic Dominican temperament: balance, suppleness, an elegance that seeks no effect. Casa Magna, its best-known blend, is the exception, reaching for Nicaraguan strength — a way of showing that the house can do something other than what is expected of it.

Range Depth

• Casa Magna

  Wrapper Nicaraguan Habano · Strength Full

  The deliberate departure of a Dominican house: Nicaraguan filler, full strength, pepper and earth. The blend that made the family known beyond its own country.

  Robusto

• Quesada Reserva Privada

  Wrapper Connecticut Broadleaf · Strength Medium

  The house style in its usual register: balanced, supple, without demonstration. A cigar you let yourself forget, in the best sense.

  Corona Gorda

🥃 Pairings

• Spanish brandy

  Spirits

  The roundness of the brandy embraces the Dominican balance rather than jostling it.

• Dominican coffee from the Cibao

  Coffee

  Grown in the same valley as the factory: the shortest pairing there is.