JC Newman owner Eric Newman, the grandson of the famous JC Newman is now running the oldest family-owned premium cigar. Eric started working for his grandfather’s factory in 1972 and has made his way up the ranks with his siblings and cousins along the way. One thing Eric and his family is proud of is the Cigar Family Foundation. JC Newman and Arturo Fuente came together to form a non-profit organization and in doing so built two schools, a medical clinic, sports facilities, and an organic farming area in the Dominican Republic.

In this interview, Eric discusses his family’s long history, JC’s product lineup, the future of JC Newman, and their newly renovated factory and museum! Check out the interview above and we hope you enjoy learning some historical information from one of the oldest cigar companies still up and running!

Julius Caesar Newman was born in 1875 in a small Hungarian village. In 1888 JC’s family sailed across the Atlantic and made his way to America in search of the “American Dream”. They arrived three years before Ellis Island was founded, the Newman’s landed and eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1895, JC Newman rolled his very first cigar at 14 years old in his family’s barn. His mother took notice and decided to take matters into her own hands.

JC’s mother would bargain with the shop owners, and as demand increased, JC received over 500 cigar orders. JC would borrow $50 from his mother and finally made his very first batch called “A.B.C.” which is an acronym for Akron, Bedford, and Cleveland. From the age of 14, JC continuously showed love to his home away from home in Ohio.

By 1916, JC expanded with the addition of two factories in Ohio that employed a total of 700 employees. In 1953, at the age of 78, JC Newman moved to the cigar capital of the world at the time, in Tampa, Florida. After the Cuban embargo was lifted, JC Newman introduced Cameroon tobacco to the United States cigar consumers.

Currently making upwards of 12 million cigars a year, JC Newman’s has a very impressive catalog with a plethora of different cigars manufactured in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and the United States.

The cigars that are handmade in the Dominican Republic are some of the most popular ones in the industry. Cigars such as Diamond Crown, Cuesta, Rey, and Arturo Fuente all have a rich history and have been around for decades. The same goes for the handmade cigars made in JC Newman’s Nicaraguan factory. Brick House, Quorum, and El Baton are cigars that were dedicated to the pre-embargo years, and some of the cigars Eric and his brother Bobby rebranded almost thirteen years ago!

Eric kept up with his grandfather’s intentions of still manufacturing and creating cigar brands in the country that helped shift JC to the man he once was. Some handmade cigars produced in the United States under the JC Newman line are the El Reloj, Trader Jack’s, and Tampa Trolleys, which is the nose nod to the trolly system that gets tourists from site to site in the beautiful city of Tampa, Florida.

The El Reloj cigar factory in “Cigar City” of Tampa, Florida was built in 1910. In celebration of its 125^th anniversary, Eric Newman and the company restored the factory to welcome tourists and visitors from all around the world. With a brand-new interactive theater, cigar tastings, factory tours, and a factory store, Eric Newman’s son Drew, had an idea to make the factory a destination for all to enjoy. Most factories are located in Nicaragua, so for cigar lovers to travel within the United States to check out a factory was big marketing plus that the Newman family knew they couldn’t pass up.

We hope you enjoyed the interview with Eric Newman as well as learning the history of a very classic and authentic cigar company that has been passed down four generations. Please go to our website and check out all that JC Newman has to offer.