Eiroa

The Eiroa family’s tobacco history began in Cuba, where Generoso Eiroa had grown tobacco since the 1900s. After the Cuban Revolution and the nationalization of the plantations, his widow and three sons left Cuba and settled in Tampa, Florida.

Generoso’s son Julio Eiroa participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion attempt. In 1963, tobacco dealer Angel Oliva sent him to Honduras, where a government-sponsored cultivation project allowed Julio to lay the foundations of the family’s tobacco plantations. After his first year with the Oliva family, he became an independent farmer and purchased government tobacco farms over successive years.

By 1972, partnerships with Bering Cigars and US Tobacco had made Julio the world’s largest Candela tobacco farmer. He founded Caribe Imported Cigars in Miami in 1987. The Eiroa family acquired Camacho Cigars in 1995, and the launch of Camacho Corojo helped make the family and its ventures well known in the United States cigar industry by the early 2000s.

In 2008, Camacho and its Rancho Jamastran factory in Danlí, Honduras, were sold to the Oettinger Davidoff Group. The Eiroa family retained ownership of its Honduran tobacco fields.