Royal Jamaica

Royal Jamaica is the brand of a country that lost its industry in a single night. James Frederick Gore founded it in Kingston in 1935, and his family held it for three generations. When the American embargo of 1962 cut the United States off from the Havana, Jamaica became the leading cigar country of the Caribbean outside Cuba — and Royal Jamaica one of the few brands American smokers accepted as a serious substitute.

The style rested on the local leaf, milder and drier than the Cuban, and on slender formats inherited from British taste. Notes of cedar, hay and black tea, with a fast burn that called for a slow draw.

On 12 September 1988, Hurricane Gilbert crossed the island at full strength. It destroyed the Kingston factory, built by the founder's grandfather, and ruined a thousand acres of tobacco at May Pen. The brand was bought within the year and its production moved to the Dominican Republic, where it continues under the same name.

It is one of the rare cases where the end of a national industry can be dated to the day.

Range Depth

• Royal Jamaica Corona

  Wrapper Cameroon · Strength Light-Medium

  Cedar, hay, a note of black tea. A slender format inherited from British taste, and a fast burn that calls for a slow draw — the profile American smokers deprived of the Havana adopted.

  Corona

• Royal Jamaica Churchill

  Wrapper Cameroon · Strength Medium

  The large format of the house. The same mildness, drawn out over an hour and a half — the one served in the hotels of Montego Bay.

  Churchill

🥃 Pairings

• Jamaican Blue Mountain

  Coffee

  The finest coffee of the Caribbean, grown a few kilometres from the destroyed factory.

• Old Jamaican rum

  Spirits

  The powerful esters of the local rum wake up a deliberately discreet blend.