Vertical Growth, Vertical Operations
A lot of cigar companies like to use the phrase “From Seed to Smoke” to describe their involvement with the cigar manufacturing process. For Davidoff, it is so much more than an alliterative catchphrase; it is the absolute truth, and the heart of the company’s success. No other cigar company in the world has as much control over every aspect of a cigar, from the time the seed enters the ground until the cigar reaches a consumer’s mouth. During our stay in the Dominican Republic, Hendrik Kelner, president of Tabacos Dominicanos S.A. (Tabadom), illustrated the initial stages of this process.

To understand Davidoff, you must first understand the man behind the cigars, Kelner. The offspring of 5 generations in the tobacco business, “Henkie” Kelner is genetically inclined to be a cigar maker. He just couldn’t help it. Although his father encouraged him to become an engineer (which he did), the draw to tobacco was just too strong to overcome, and a young Henkie joined Compania Tabacalera Santiaguense (Cotasa), the Dominican government’s tobacco company - better known as “Tabacalera” to the locals - and worked with the company’s cigarette brands and, later, La Habanera, the oldest cigar brand in the Dominican. After 14 years, the urge to control his own cigar making facility overwhelmed Kendrik, and Tabadom was born in 1984, with a grand total of four rollers. Tabadom thrived on private label brands such as Montero and Match Play, and even Avo (before Davidoff bought a majority share of the brand) until July 1989, when Kelner received an order for 125,000 cigars from Davidoff. Three months later Davidoff ordered three million, and a true partnership was created. Now, Kelner oversees the operations of three cigar factories with over 600 rollers, over 300 contract tobacco growers, and several leaf processing facilities, which work together to produce well over 20 million cigars a year.

Davidoff's sales and marketing team of Centro Espanol...

Davidoff’s corporate obsession for quality control found the perfect match in Hendrik Kelner. What drove Davidoff to Kelner’s operation in the Dominican Republic was the man’s uncanny knowledge of tobacco, and his engineer’s eye for precision in a very imprecise business. Kelner works with his contract tobacco farmers, testing the soil each year and providing total agricultural support throughout the growing process. Farmers who grow for Henkie are protected, guaranteed to sell their crop at the end of the season, and compensated for allowing their fields to lie fallow while other farmers grow multiple tobacco crops per year, or turn their fields over to fruit trees. Quality curing barns were built, and the curing process overseen at ever step of the way. The result is consistent tobacco from each farm.

There are about a thousand reasons for tobacco from the same farm to taste different each year. Kelner’s aim is to control everything but the weather. The seed must be the same, the transplanting method must be the same, the watering, the priming, the curing, etc. etc. Before the tobacco even gets to the processing plant, it has most likely been inspected by Kelner’s hands and eyes - the leaf tobacco equivalent of a electron microscope. It is rumored that Kelner can smoke a cigar and identify the farms that the tobacco came from. It is true. Smokeshop saw it happen.

Another one of Kelner’s talents is a legendary ability to blend tobacco to achieve a consistent taste, the essence of premium cigar making. To illustrate the process, Davidoff hosted a cigar tasting lunch at the Centro Español, an exclusive Dominican country club that counts some of the world’s best cigar makers among its members. We came along to take Kelner’s cigar tasting course.

Armed with four samples, a pack of matches, and an ashtray, Kelner led the Davidoff team through the three components of one type of Davidoff cigar. First we smoked a stick constructed entirely of Dominican Olor tobacco (acidic and sweet). Then a cigar made from San Vicente (bitter, salty). And then a stick of Cubano Piloto (whoa!). Kelner’s patented tongue chart and strength gauge helped us navigate the method by which different tobaccos affect the palate, while an incomprehensible multi-graphed map illustrated the various regions of Dominican tobacco, different seed types, and soil acidity levels which affect the leaf. (Yes, you either have to be an engineer to understand the chart, or a cigar maker with about 30 years under your belt).

At any rate, the fourth cigar (the perfect blend of the previous three) was a Davidoff Grand Cru No. 3. “I can tell any manufacturer in the world my exact blend, and give him a recipe to make my cigars,” comments Henkie, “but they couldn’t do it. To achieve consistency, you must have total control over your tobacco right from the farm.”

The Avo Connection
It seems funny that, when Smokeshop asked Avo, “Who exactly is Avo Uvezian?” he forgot to include the word “cigar” in the description. It just isn’t necessary. When you look at Avo, you think cigars...even when he isn’t sporting the white bespoke Brioni suit or the trademark hat. Maybe “crazy Aries” is the most accurate description. According to syndicated astrologer Linda Black, the prime objective of an Aries is “to be independent, self-assertive and to set an action in motion.”

Setting an action into motion is precisely what Avo did in the mid-1980s at Puerto Rico’s Palmas de Mar resort, where he was playing at the pool’s piano bar. Avo was already having cigars custom made for his personal consumption and to give away to resort guests. But one day when a guest asked Avo for a cigar, his five year old daughter Karyn remarked, “If he wants a cigar, Dad, let him buy it.” Avo agreed, and the action set in motion that day resulted in one of the world’s most successful premium cigars.

Avo cigars were born soon after with the help of Kelner’s growing Tabadom factory. “Why would anybody want to buy an Avo cigar?” Avo speculated at the time, “Nobody knows it.” Avo realized that the new brand would have to be sold on the basis of quality. “Henkie and I made a deal, and we settled on a price. Then I said to him, ‘I’m going to pay you 25 percent more than what you asked.” Thus, Avo felt confident that he would receive Kelner’s full commitment and best tobacco for his 3,500 cigar order.

A connection with Michel Roux, the gentleman responsible for bringing Absolut vodka and Knockando scotch into the United States, resulted in using prestigious IDV Corporation to design the distinctive Avo band - at the time, a trend setting label for the cigar industry. Word spread, and soon the Davidoff of Geneva store on Madison Avenue placed an order during its first year of business, 1987. The cigars exceeded all expectations, and 1987 saw 125,000 units sold. The second year brought orders of 250,000 sticks. When the number reached approximately 750,000 a few years later, Davidoff and Avo made a deal.

Davidoff president Christoph Kull enjoys an after dinner cigar at Santiago’s Mezzaluna restaurant.

Now, with the brand’s production and marketing entrusted to the Davidoff team, Avo is free to spend his time promoting his brands; at the same time pursuing his other passion, music. A graduate of New York’s prestigious Julliard School, Avo has dedicated his life to the piano. In the process, the instrument has been the vehicle for: supporting his family; traveling the world; learning nine languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic, Armenian, Turkish, and Farsi); and even getting him out of the Korean War (a story for another time).

Yet, of all his compositions, the one that has brought him the most satisfaction and recognition is his cigar. Luckily, the business affords Avo the opportunity to continue as a impresario of The Good Life. “As a pianist and a performer, one knows how to keep in contact with the audience,” says Avo. “People’s reaction to the cigar is just as satisfying as applause after a concert…the magic stays in one’s mind.”

Avo’s newest creation, the Domaine Series, is proving to be magical at the retail level already. Smokeshop had the opportunity to taste the new perfecto size, manufactured to the specifications found in an antique Dutch cigar mold from 1823 (a find at an antique show in Paris). Currently only 10 rollers work on the limited edition Domaine line. Interestingly, the rollers who produce the perfecto sizes are specially trained to roll only that shape, having no experience rolling standard sizes such as a Churchill or robusto. “The rollers are trained from ‘zero’,” explains Avo. “In this way, making this difficult shape becomes second nature to them, as opposed to a regular roller trying to transform a robusto into a torpedo.” (Expect to see the new perfecto in time for the RTDA show).

Currently celebrating a decade in the cigar business, with three full lines of cigars (Avo, Avo XO, and Domaine Avo) and a full complement of accessories that bear his name, Avo is looking towards the future with enthusiasm in this “post-boom” era of cigars.