La Flor de La Isabela is known for excellence in handmade cigars since 1881. Each La Flor de La Isabela cigar is painstakingly aged and every brand is expertly blended by its Master Blender to achieve the best cigar quality and consistency.
History
Towards the end of the 17th century, the Spanish galleon "San Clemente" brought to the Philippines 200 ounces of Cuban tobacco seeds. These exquisite seeds propitiously found their way into the hands of the Spanish friars who took it up to themselves to cultivate the tobacco seeds in Cagayan Valley, Isabela, a fertile region of North Manila, named after Queen Isabela.
With land as rich and climate as favorable as that of Cuba's, tobacco-growing soon flourished and gave birth to a burgeoning cigar-making industry in the Philippines.
Half a century later, the Governor General of the Philippines sent as gift to the Viceroy of New Spain, the finest, hand-rolled cigars form the Isabela plantation.
The Viceroy summarily pronounced the cigar to be of exquisite quality and fit for Spanish royalty. And in no time at all, through word of mouth, Philippine cigars gained widespread interest and international prominence throughout the old world.
The Company
In 1881, the entire cigar manufacturing industry in Manila was united to establish "Compania General de Tobacos de Filipinas". This eventually evolved as what is known today as "La Flor de la Isabela" (The Flower of Isabela), in honor of the province where the first Cuban seeds were first cultivated and where Philippine industry blossomed.
This strategic move created a formidable force moving in a single, focused direction, to meet the demand of the local market, but more importantly, to produce the premium internationally-accepted cigar.
This made for a concerted effort toward producing the only world-class, Philippine-made cigar worthy of worldwide acclaim - La Flor de la Isabela. Today, La Flor de la Isabela holds the distinction of not only being the first and oldest cigar factory in Asia, but also among the oldest cigar companies in the world. The distinctive heritage of La Flor de la Isabela has inspired cigar brands such as Tabacalera, Don Juan Urquijo, 1881, and Alhambra which are considered by discriminating cigar connoisseurs to be among the world's finest premium brands.
Website: La Flor De La Isabela
Source: La Flor de la Isabela
