Tabacalera Palma

Tabacalera Palma is not a brand: it is the factory four of this atlas's brands come out of. José Arnaldo Blanco II established it in 1925 and filed its industrial registration in 1936, says the house on its presentation page; its home page and Cigar Coop, which notes its ninety years in March 2026, date its activity from 1936, and an article by the Premium Cigar Association of April 2024 writes both dates. His father, José Manuel Blanco Lozada, was a Spaniard who reached the Dominican Republic — in the middle of the nineteenth century, according to the house, which places the origins of the company there; in the late 1880s, according to an article by the Premium Cigar Association of April 2024.

José "Jochy" Blanco runs it today. He is the fourth generation of growers in the family and the third at the head of the house — a continuity that is rare in a trade where almost every name has changed hands.

In 1995 he moved the factory into a free-trade zone he created himself, at Tamboril, on the outskirts of Santiago. It is named La Palma, and that is where the frequent confusion between the name of the zone and the name of the company comes from. More than three hundred and fifty people work there, more than seven in ten of them women.

It rolls its own brand, La Galera, and makes for others: Aging Room and Swag for Rafael Nodal (but La Bohème and Aging Room's Quattro Nicaragua have been made, since 2025, at A.J. Fernandez, in Nicaragua), and the Matilde this atlas already holds. It is also the factory that blends Altadis's Trinidad Santiago — a Dominican factory making a cigar under a Cuban name, which sums this country up rather well.

Range Depth

• La Galera

  Wrapper Dominican blends, varied wrappers · Strength Medium

  The factory's own brand, and the only one it signs with its own name. The word names the rolling floor itself — the room where the torcedores work in rows.

  Robusto · Toro · Corona

• Rough Rider

  Wrapper Connecticut, maduro, candela

  A brand of Jochy Blanco, coming from the IndianHead portfolio that he bought in 2015 from Bill Bock; the Rough Rider Sweets line has three cigars, Connecticut, Maduro and Candela, the last shown at PCA 2025 in Robusto (5 x 50), Toro (6 x 52) and Gordo (6 x 60), with a filler of Criollo 98, Piloto Cubano and Cameroon, rolled at Tabacalera Palma. An article by the Premium Cigar Association of April 2024 describes it as longfiller, with a sweet tip.

• Cuban Aristocrat

  Wrapper Connecticut, habano, maduro · Strength Mild-Medium

  Released in 2007 according to cigarcentury.com, which says it is made by Tabacalera Palma, with a Dominican binder and a filler from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic; it came to Jochy Blanco in 2015 with the purchase of IndianHead. In April 2024, an article by the Premium Cigar Association places it among the factory's mixed-filler lines (mixed-fill), sold in boxes; in October 2026, Neptune Cigar sells the Connecticut Robusto as a “Handmade” cigar, manufacturer Tabacalera Palma.

• La Instructora

  Wrapper Brazilian Cubra, Connecticut · Strength Medium

  A joint project of Jochy Blanco, who blended the Delicado, and Aaron Saide, named its founder by luxurycigarclub.com; on the market since 2017, rolled at Tabacalera Palma, with the Box Pressed (Cubra wrapper from Brazil, Piloto binder, filler of Dominican Criollo 98 and Piloto) and the Delicado (American Connecticut wrapper). In April 2024, an article by the Premium Cigar Association places it among the factory's high-end brands.