White Owl
cigars have a long history dating back to the late 19th century. It begins in
1887, when Ferdinand Cullman and his son, Joseph, began selling cigars in
addition to their wine business in New York.
In 1906,
the Cullman family founded United Cigar Manufacturers Company, which was listed
on the New York Stock Exchange that same year. Soon, Joseph Cullman Jr. became
interested in growing tobacco and, in the fertile fields of Connecticut's
Connecticut River Valley, he began to cultivate Havana seed, or Cuban seed, as
it was also known. He obtained a lighter wrapper leaf than what was already
being grown in the area, which was very popular with consumers and soon became
very popular. As a result, the Cullmans became one of the largest growers of
wrapper leaf in the state.
United
Cigar Manufacturers grew rapidly in its first decade, and in 1917 changed its
name to General Cigar Co. Inc., a company that introduced a radical
transformation in both the image and structure of the tobacco industry in the
United States and is, today, one of the largest tobacco companies in the world.
General Cigar concentrated on the manufacture, sale and advertising of five
major brands, including White Owl, which quickly became one of its best-known
offerings.
Its
manufacturing
The brand
is known for producing machine-made cigars. For generations it has been prized
for its tobaccos from five exotic countries, blended and carefully selected by
experts. This diverse filler is rolled into a leaf binder and covered with a
homogenized wrapper that adds a uniform tone to the tobacco blend.
Changes
over time
In the
early 1920s, White Owl introduced aluminum wrappers for individual cigars as a
way to ensure product freshness and flavor. The market reacted favorably and,
by 1930, they were the best-selling cigars in the country.
In 1944,
White Owl took an unprecedented step that shook the tobacco industry: it
produced the first cigarillo on the market by reducing the size of the popular
panetela cigar. Today, almost 95% of the cigars sold on store shelves are in
this format.
A few years
later, White Owl introduced the homogenized tobacco leaf wrapper, capable of
providing a more uniform and smoother smoke. Like many of the innovations
brought by the brand, today, some of the best-selling cigars on the market,
such as Swisher Sweet and Dutch Masters, use this type of leaf.
In line
with many manufacturers in the late 1990s, White Owl released one or two
flavored cigars to gauge their acceptance. Then, in the early part of this
century, it introduced a line of apple, blackberry, grape, peach, pineapple,
strawberry and watermelon flavored cigars, which became, again, one of the
novelties delivered by the brand to the cigar world. During the following
decade, more manufacturers decided to manufacture flavored cigars and sales
tripled, now accounting for 40% of the cigarette market.
In the late
1990s, General Cigar was acquired by Swedish Match and in 2010, that Swedish
company merged with Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG), creating a global company
with leading market positions in cigars, pipe tobacco and fine cut tobacco.
Today,
since moving from Pennsylvania in 1985, cigars are manufactured in Dothan,
Alabama. The White Owl brand remains a prominent choice, with one of the
broadest flavor offerings including grape, peach, mango and pineapple.
They are available
in a wide variety of flavors in our store.
