A Year to Remember

Handmade Cigar Imports Reached More Than 450 Million Units In 2021, The Best Year Since The 1990S

- By David Savona

American cigar sales are booming, and cigar retailers (such as Orlando's Corona Cigar Co., above) and cigarmakers are at their busiest since the 1990s.

It's a little past noon on a warm, cloudy February day in Orlando, Florida. On Sand Lake Road-about a 12-minute drive from the mouse madness at Walt Disney World-is the original outpost of Corona Cigar Co., a cigar megastore. Instead of hiding in a backroom, all its inventory is out on display, in aisle after aisle of cigar paradise. From Fuentes to Padróns, Olivas to Montecristos, cigars of all shapes, sizes colors and price points are basking in the humidified air, waiting to be cut and lit.

A Rolls Royce is parked out front, eye candy for the customers who sit at the outdoor tables puffing away in peace. Each table seats a smoker-or several smokers-and there's a good crowd inside as well. A group of friends (including one U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan) are laughing it up while they smoke and have a few beers. A businessman is walking the aisles, a few favorites in his hand even as he considers buying something new. The cash registers are ringing.

It's a common story in the cigar industry as shops are enjoying big numbers and cigar imports are hitting records. Shipments of handmade, premium cigars to the United States were a heady 456 million units in 2021, numbers that rival the 1990s cigar boom. This was the 10th year in a row that cigar imports exceeded 300 million units, and the first year since 1997 when imports were more than 400 million units.