Frank Anthony Llaneza (March 9, 1920 – March 18, 2010) was a
tobacco blender and former executive of Villazon & Co. who is regarded as a pioneer in the resurgence of the premium
cigar
A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaves made to be smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct components: the filler, the binder l ...
industry at the end of the 20th Century. Llaneza is best known for the creation and manufacture of a number of popular cigar brands in the years after the
1962 Cuban Embargo, including
Hoyo de Monterrey,
Punch,
Bolivar, and
Siglo.
Biography
Early years
Frank Llaneza was born on March 9, 1920, in
Tampa, Florida. His father, José Llaneza, was a cigar maker who produced a brand in
Ybor City
Ybor City ( ) is a historic neighborhood just northeast of downtown Tampa, downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly ...
known as Pancho Arango.
[Lew Rothman, "Frank Llaneza: The Master Blender and His Legacy of Exceptional Brands," ''Cigar Magazine,'' vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter 2004). Reprinted in J-R Cigar catalog 2011 #2, pp. 3-35.] An 11-month-long
strike of tobacco workers bankrupted many of Tampa's cigar makers, however, including Frank's father. In the aftermath, the elder Llaneza went to work for the company of Schwab-Davis, one of the city's biggest cigar manufacturers as makers of the popular brand
Rey del Rey Rey may refer to:
*Rey (given name), a given name
*Rey (surname), a surname
* Rey (''Star Wars''), a character in the ''Star Wars'' films
*Rey, Iran, a city in Iran
* Ray County, in Tehran Province of Iran
* ''Rey'' (film), a 2015 Indian film
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.
During his time as a manager at Schwab-Davis, Llaneza's father launched another company with his three former business partners called José Arango.
When Schwab-Davis was later sold to a company called Gradiaz-Annis, a forerunner of
General Cigar Co.
General Cigar Company is the largest manufacturer of cigars, premium cigars in the world. It is a subsidiary of Scandinavian Tobacco Group with North American headquarters located in Richmond, Virginia.
Company history
In 1961 General Cigar, wh ...
, the elder Llaneza left the company's employ to devote himself full-time to his own new enterprise.
During his school years, Llaneza worked part-time in his father's factory, beginning work at age 15.
[Gordon Mott]
"An Interview with Frank Llaneza,"
''Cigar Aficionado,'' vol. 7, no. 2 (February 1999), pp. 84-99. He graduated from Tampa's
Jesuit High School in 1936.
[Andrew Meacham]
"Cigar Hall-of-Famer Frank Llaneza Always Put Family First,"
''St. Petersburg Times,'' March 25, 2010.
Early career
Following graduation from high school, Frank Llaneza went to work in the cigar industry full-time beginning at his father's factory as an apprentice selector of
tobacco leaf, helping to sort it for size, color, and quality.
With
World War II on the horizon, Llaneza joined the
United States Coast Guard in 1940. He served in the
Gulf of Mexico and the
North Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...
through the end of the war in 1945.
Following conclusion of the war, Llaneza returned to work in his father's factory as a tobacco selector before moving to become a
foreman supervising the