The Story of Cohiba: One Name, Two Traditions

A word older than the brand

Long before Cohiba was a cigar, it was simply a word. The Taíno people, the Indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean, used cohiba for the tobacco plant itself — for the rolled leaves they smoked in ritual and in rest. When the brand took the name in the twentieth century, it was reaching back to the very beginning of cigar history on the island of Cuba.

The brand itself was created in 1966, in Havana, and it was not created for the public. Cohiba was produced exclusively for Fidel Castro and for senior Cuban government officials and visiting diplomats — a private cigar, made in small quantities, that almost nobody outside the state’s inner circles would ever smoke. For years, the surest way to taste one was to be given one.

That exclusivity is the foundation of everything Cohiba became. The cigars were built to a standard rather than a price: the finest leaves from Cuba’s best tobacco country, handled with unusual care, and rolled for an audience that included the head of state. They travelled as diplomatic gifts, appearing in the hands of presidents and ambassadors who could not have bought one at any price. A cigar does not stay a secret of that quality forever — it becomes a legend first, and legends have a way of demanding a wider audience.

1982: the private cigar goes public

In 1982, Cohiba became commercially available in Cuba for the first time, and from there it travelled — through Spain and beyond, into the humidors of smokers who had previously only heard the name spoken like a rumour. It became, and remains, Cuba’s flagship cigar brand: the name the island itself puts forward when it wants to show the world what a Cuban cigar is.

For many smokers, that is where the story ends: Cohiba is Cuban, full stop. But there is a second story, and if you are buying cigars in the United States, it is the one that matters to you.

Two Cohibas, honestly explained

After the Cuban revolution, Cuban brands fractured across borders. Exiles, trademarks, and embargoes split famous names in two — one version made in Cuba, another made elsewhere for the markets Cuba could not sell to. Cohiba is the best-known example.

The General Cigar Company produces its own Cohiba — made in the Dominican Republic and sold legally in the United States. These are entirely separate products from separate companies. A Dominican-made Cohiba is not a Cuban Cohiba by another route, and no honest retailer should let you believe otherwise. What it is, is a cigar tradition in its own right: Dominican craftsmanship, built over decades, under a name it holds the US rights to.

You can tell the two apart at a glance. The American line carries a distinctive mark — a red dot inside the “O” of Cohiba on the band. Among US smokers, “Red Dot” has become the shorthand for the whole Dominican-made range: when someone in the States asks for a Cohiba, this is the cigar they mean.

The Dominican lines today

The Red Dot family has grown well beyond the original cigar, and the range now spans most of what a smoker could ask for.

The classics come first. Cohiba Red Dot is the original Dominican expression — Cameroon wrapper, a measured, medium-bodied profile, the reference point for the line. Cohiba Black goes darker and richer, built around a Maduro style for smokers who like depth over brightness. Cohiba Blue is the accessible door into the brand: a smoother, easier draw at a gentler price, made for an everyday smoke rather than an occasion.

From there the range stretches in both directions. Cohiba Connecticut is wrapped in a light shade-grown leaf and leans mild and creamy — the Cohiba you hand to a friend who thinks cigars are not for them. Cohiba Nicaragua stands at the other end: fuller, spicier, the strongest voice in the core family. Between and around them sit Cohiba Royale, a richer, full-flavoured expression, Cohiba Riviera, and Cohiba Rubicon — evidence that the modern line is a living range, still being written, rather than a museum piece trading on an old name.

Then there are the premium and collaboration lines, where the brand stretches its legs. Cohiba Weller was developed with the makers of Weller bourbon, with binder leaves aged in bourbon barrels — a cigar designed to sit beside a glass, not just near one. Cohiba Serie M is rolled in Miami, in small numbers, by a factory in Little Havana — a nod to the exiled hands that carried Cuban cigar craft to American soil. Cohiba Macassar, Cohiba Spectre, and Cohiba C8 occupy the top shelf: limited, carefully finished releases for collectors and for the evenings that deserve them.

Why we carry the name

A name with this much history invites shortcuts — inflated stories, vague promises, prices that lean on legend. We would rather sell the cigar. Every Cohiba at cohibashop.com is a premium Dominican-made cigar from the lines above, priced 20% below JR Cigars, with free shipping on orders over $800. No mythology in the pricing; the story is good enough on its own.

If you are new to the brand, start with the Red Dot and read the story in the smoke — a private cigar from 1966, carried across an ocean and an embargo, and rolled today in the Dominican Republic for whoever pours something good and sits down unhurried. That, in the end, is what the name has always meant.

Questions about any line we carry? Write to us at orders@cohibashop.com.

You must be 21 or older to purchase tobacco products.