{"id":13079,"date":"2016-11-14T18:49:16","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T17:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/?p=13079"},"modified":"2016-11-14T18:49:16","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T17:49:16","slug":"sandy-cobas-el-titan-de-bronze-factory-little-havana-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/sandy-cobas-el-titan-de-bronze-factory-little-havana-miami\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandy Cobas‘ El Titan de Bronze Factory in Little Havana, Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Sandy Cobas it\u2019s all about the stories. Someone wanting a cigar made at her factory had better bring something to the table. And at El Titan de Bronze in Miami there are many stories to be told, starting with the name.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to work with anyone who\u2019s not sincere about what he wants to do,\u201d Cobas says. \u201cI like if there\u2019s a story behind it, because I really get into what I\u2019m doing. If you don\u2019t have the passion it\u2019s not going to turn out well. The brand is named after Antonio Maceo one of the three patriots of Cuba alongside Jose\u0301 Marti\u0301 and Ma\u0301ximo Go\u0301mez. He was very big and husky, and he fought with a machete in the Spanish-American war. Since he was mulato they called him El Titan de Bronze. I always liked that name. It\u2019s very masculine and that\u2019s our heritage. I might\u2019ve been brought up here, but my roots are Cuban. I talk, eat, dance and feel Cuban, but I love America too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The factory is located on the famous Calle Ocho in the Little Havana district, Miami. After having worked in the liquor business for many years, Cobas decided to turn to cigars \u2013 a somewhat rash decision, as it turned out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was during the boom in the Nineties. People used to come in and ask for cigars, so I thought we should add that to our selection, since liquor and cigars marry well. So we got a roller and some humidors. The problem was that I thought cigars were included in the license I already had, you know from the ATF*, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, but a customer of mine, who worked undercover for the ATF, came in one day and asked me what I was doing.\u201d It turned out that, to sell tobacco, a specific license was needed. So with the help of her customer, Cobas applied, got the right license, and finally moved from Westchester, where she\u2019d had her liquor business, to Little Havana. She has been there for 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started off with one or two rollers and then slowly expanded, depending on what the business demanded. We only had half the space that we do now. Everything happened in here,\u201d she says and looks around her small office.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo: Simon Lundh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This area was once full of cigar factories, like My Father, Perdomo and Padro\u0301n. When they moved their production to Central America, El Titan stayed put. Today Cobas has ten rollers in what is one of very few factories left on the street. She produces 250,000 to 300,000 cigars a year, and that\u2019s about as big as she wants to be. \u201cEveryone asks me why I don\u2019t move my production to Nicaragua and Honduras, but I don\u2019t want to expand too much,\u201d she explains. \u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of offers to join partnerships, or from silent investors, but I want to be on my own. Also, my parents are old and I can\u2019t move them over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staying small means staying in control, according to Cobas. \u201cI have the privilege to do things my way and the way my customers want to do it. I like the wrapper to be shiny, for instance, not spotty or with veins, and I like the triple cap. The good thing with that is that the cigar doesn\u2019t unravel when you cut it. It\u2019s like putting three seams on a pair of pants. I also like buying from small farms, because if you use tobacco from the same land it\u2019s going to taste the same. If you jump from producer to producer it\u2019s going to throw off the blends, and since I\u2019m small I can stick to the same place. You have all the control.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo: Simon Lundh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Another story worth telling is that of her star roller, 66-year-old Mari\u0301a Sierra, who came from Cuba five years ago and, due to merits, instantly got a job at El Titan. \u201cHer daughter called me up and said that her mom was coming to Miami and wanted a job. I asked her where she\u2019d worked in Cuba and she said El Laguito, the famous factory in Havana that only produced cigars for Fidel Castro. \u2018Are you kidding? Tell her that she has a job!\u2019 I said.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mari\u0301a Sierra was one of 30 female rollers to be chosen from hundreds when Fidel Castro\u2019s indispensable helper, Celia Sa\u0301nchez, decided it was time for women to get into the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then, women were housewives and home-makers,\u201d says Cobas. \u201cThey didn\u2019t work. Mari\u0301a was 18 years old then, and worked there for 31 years.\u201d Her fame is well known in the cigar world. Of the first 30 girls, Mari\u0301a is one of the few who still alive, and her cigars sell instantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re sold before they hit the shelves, more or less,\u201d Cobas tells me. \u201cPeople come in and ask if Mari\u0301a\u2019s here. A guy from Seattle, in Florida for business, drove down from Sarasota to get his boxes signed by Mari\u0301a. He had bought one box of every cigar she\u2019d made, and he was so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the boxes were already signed, in a way. At El Titan, rollers and bunchers don\u2019t work in pairs as they do in Central America and the Dominican Republic. They work according to Cuban tradition, where each roller is responsible for his or her own cigar, from beginning to end. When a box is done, the roller\u2019s name is put on the bottom. \u201cThat way, the rollers feel a greater responsibility and pride for each stick, and customers love knowing who made their cigars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo: Simon Lundh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

There are five different Titan cigars, Redemption Maduro, Redemption Sun Grown Habano, Grand Reserve Maduro, Gold, and My Way. They are only sold at Cobas\u2019 store. \u201cI don\u2019t do cigar stores anymore,\u201d she says. \u201cThey sell the cigars I produce for other companies, but not mine. I can\u2019t commit to both. I can\u2019t produce enough for them to be happy, and I\u2019m committed to the ones I do manufacture for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the five cigars, My Way is the only blend Sandy came up with herself. The rest were done by her son-in-law, Willy Ferrera. \u201cHe had such a great palate that Jonathan Drew from Drew Estate offered him a job. He was a great blender and when he left he was worried how I\u2019d get on without him. So was Jonathan. So I decided I was going to create a cigar, my way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandy Cobas also makes cigars for a number of different companies, like La Palina, Warped Cigars, Chinnock Cellars Cigars, Bonita Smoke Shop, Padilla, and many more. In addition, she makes some that are liquor flavored.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put a couple of cigars in a Tupperware box and cover them in tobacco leaves that we spray with different types of liquor, like Macallan, Re\u0301my Martin and Louis XIII cognac. These we do for Atlantic City Cigars and the owner sells them for $100 a stick.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, to round off the story of El Titan, here\u2019s another captivating subplot, suitably enough involving both liquor and tobacco. Sandy is making a cigar with Scottish whisky for 1880 International, owned and run by Andrew Brice. \u201cThe owner\u2019s grandfather was a hard-working man from Detroit who went bankrupt,\u201d she tells me. \u201cBut he then invented an undercoat [rust-proof protection for vehicles] and became a millionaire.\u201d His children convinced him to travel, and he went to Europe. In Scotland he visited a distillery and bought several barrels of whisky, which he never received. As these barrels were never claimed, after the inventor\u2019s death, his relatives found the receipts of the order. Some forty years later, the barrels of liquor were retrieved by the grandchildren through a lawsuit. \u201cThey asked me if I could make a cigar with it,\u201d Sandy Cobas concludes. \u201cIt\u2019s called 1880 Family Reserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

*ATF: official name since April 2003: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Little Havana area in Miami, Florida was once full of cigar factories, like My Father, Perdomo and Padro\u0301n. When they moved their production to Central America, El Titan stayed put. Today Cobas has ten rollers in what is one of very few factories left on the street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":13080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[49,3027,68,692,178,44],"tags":[312,3095,3094,1998,2001,3093,3092,1672],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13079"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}