The Perdomo Family History |
In Tribute
Nicholas G. Perdomo |
Our story traces its roots to San Jose de las Lajas, Cuba, an agricultural and industrial municipality located 27 kilometers southeast of Havana, where Silvio Perdomo was raised. He apprenticed first at Cuesta y Cia. in the early 1930's before leaving to practice his art at the H. Upmann factory from 1937 to 1945; and at the famed Partagas factory until 1959. It is also where his son, Nick Perdomo, Sr. was born and began his apprenticeship in 1948 at the Marin & Trujillo factory before earning accolades for his craftsmanship and making his own way to join his father at Partagas. "Things were going so well then, my father and I were just beginning to establish ourselves and obtain recognition for our work," said Nick, Sr., an imposing wrecking ball of a man with a soft voice and a heart as big as his frame. "But then Castro destroyed everything - our country, our lives and our freedom."
A quiet and peaceful man steadfastly opposed to Castro and the communist revolution, Silvio Perdomo was soon arrested in his own home and quickly tried and incarcerated in the notorious Isle of Pines prison where he endured his harshest treatment. Three years later he was transferred to La Cabana, a murky 18th century fortress overlooking Havana Bay. For the next 12 excruciating years, Silvio suffered through squalid conditions, torture and near-starvation at La Cabana and four other Cuban prisons. 
Nick, Sr. was also a target of the wrath and violence inherent in establishing Castro's "New Cuba". Ambushed by pro-Castro guerillas, he was shot and critically wounded - within view of the very home his father Silvio was arrested and abducted from. "The political views of my family and I were very anti-communist , and (then former president Fulgencio) Batista used to visit the factories frequently," Nick, Sr. recalled. "Batista didn't smoke cigars but, because it's one of Cuba's main exports, he was very interested in what my father and I were doing with the different cigar shapes and styles we were experimenting with." Nick, Sr. then laughs gently, shaking his head. "The communists must've thought I was a close friend of Batista. I've still got two bullets inside of me to prove it." Hunted while being cared for in the home of a close friend, Nick, Sr. managed to escape Cuba before fully recovering from his wounds through a sponsorship hastily arranged with the Catholic Church. His arrival in Washington, D.C. yielded a startling discovery. "I knew the streets weren't paved with gold, but my sponsors had no place for me. Nowhere to live or eat. Nick Sr. now pauses and his eyelids narrow. "But I thank God for coming to America. It has given my family the precious opportunities of freedom they never would have had in Cuba." Nick, Sr. now points at a large American flag he has on the wall of his office, "When I raised my right hand before this beautiful flag it was one of the proudest moments of my life. Even though I'm proud of my Cuban heritage, I bleed American red, white and blue."
Cast into the streets of our nation's capital, Nick, Sr. survived by finding work wherever he could before he was able to start his own business. For the next 15 years he persevered in his relentless attempts to extricate his father from the Cuban prison system. During that time span, he also managed to start up and run a successful business and marry his sweetheart Mary, who gave birth to his two sons Nick, Jr. and William. "I had long forgotten about the cigar business by then," Nick, Sr. flatly says. "We were doing well, I had mouths to feed and I was trying to get my father out of Cuba. When I finally obtained my father's release he came to live with us in Baltimore and got me interested in making cigars again." Soon the Perdomo's moved to a modest home in Miami, and a happily reunited father and son would spend their weekends around the kitchen table crafting and smoking cigars using tobaccos bought regularly from a Cuban torcedor in Key West they had known since their days together at Partagas. 
Soon a teenage Nick, Jr. joined the fray, although then as a silent, indentured apprentice. "If you thought my father and I were serious about making cigars, you should have seen mi hijo (my son)," laughs Nick, Sr. pointing at his son. "He has so much of my father Silvio in him." All three shared the dream that one day they would fulfill their passion for cigar making in a more meaningful way. But it was a teenage Nick, Jr., absorbing his father and grandfather's experience from decades of work that would eventually turn their distant dream into a source of great family pride.
When he graduated high school, Nick, Jr. was encouraged by Silvio and Nick, Sr. to attend college, but Nick, Jr. wanted to make cigars. "The cigar market was a dead business then," stated the elder Perdomo. "My father and I knew he had to do something else with his life." Enamored with aircraft and flying, Nick, Jr. enlisted in the U.S. Navy and worked the airfields at the third largest Naval facility in the U.S. - Mayport Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida. Upon being honorably discharged from service four years later, he finally began his cigar making quest. "All I ever wanted to do was make cigars," smiled Nick, Jr., the stocky prodigy. "But my wife Janine was pregnant. I had a family on the way and needed to provide for them. But Janine reminded me of the weekends I spent with my dad and granddad, and she knew I could only be happy making cigars. God bless her. I don't know what I would have done without her." 
In 1991, Nick, Jr. and his two mentors began their cigar making endeavor in earnest. They first leased a small factory in Little Havana and later moved to a larger facility on Flagler Street. With the business growing, 1996 became a landmark year for Tabacalera Perdomo. First, the company moved its manufacturing operations from Miami to Esteli, Nicaragua. And then tragically, six months later, Silvio Perdomo quietly passed away in his sleep on November 11th.
"He wasn't in the best of health for some time," Nick, Jr. said solemnly. "He insisted on coming down to see our Nicaraguan factory, even from his hospital bed." Nick, Sr. continued, "He was our leader, our spiritual guide. He taught us everything we know. His legacy is showing us the pride and passion one must have to create a work to be enjoyed and admired by others. He was a true artist." Nick, Jr. and his father finally moved production to its present site, a prodigious 88,000 square foot factory referred to as "El Monstro" by the Esteli townspeople. The state-of-the-art facility is the final destination in the long and circuitous journey of the Perdomo family. "This is the place where we make cigars the only way we know how, the Cuban Way," insists Nick, Jr. It is also where modern technology and the deeply rooted traditions of Cuban cigar making converge. The factory employs a cryogenic system to freeze tobacco at sub-freezing temperature to eliminate the possibility of tobacco infestation. Cavernous aging chambers lined with Spanish cedar store raw tobacco and freshly rolled cigars for up to three years before being released. These chambers are monitored round-the-clock by a computerized system that ensures the desired temperature and humidity levels never deviate from Perdomo's strict guidelines. A centralized draw testing station, designed exclusively for the Perdomo family, assures each and every cigar that leaves the factory draws effortlessly. "When communism ends in Cuba, we will grow, harvest, age, blend and produce cigars there and restore its once great reputation for cigar making," Nick, Jr. asserts. "But even when that time comes, I will always continue to make cigars here. This factory is a sacred place for my family and I. It is the realization of a dream that has lasted through three generations. A dream to make the best cigars in the world." |