Alec And Bradley Blend Their First Cigar For Alec Bradley
When Alan Rubin started Alec Bradley Cigar Co. in 1996, he named it after his two sons, Alec and Bradley. Today, they work with their father and now they have created a cigar of their own. Rubin gave his sons some guidance on the blending process, but this cigar is all theirs—and they’ve called it Blind Faith by Alec & Bradley.
“This is truly their project,” said Rubin. “And one that represents their vision.”
At 26 years old, Alec Rubin is the older of the two sons and started working for the company during summer vacations when he was 12, packing and shipping orders in the company’s Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, warehouse.
“Now, when I am in the office I focus on marketing and promotions,” Alec said. “And when I’m on the road I am providing sales support and doing events.”
His younger brother Bradley, 22, also started in fulfillment before moving to accounting and then learning to make sales calls.
“Now, I mainly focus my efforts on marketing, social media, sales promotions and helping our territory managers work more efficiently,” Bradley said.
Both brothers have gone down to Central America once a month for the past six months to understand the full process behind cigar production.
“On my first trip down to the factories, I worked with the supervisors on creating blends and immediately realized this was going to be much more difficult than I expected,” Alec said. “Since then I have been completely immersed in creating a blend that I could be proud to call my own and would want to smoke myself.”
Blind Faith is made in Honduras at the Raices Cubanas factory, where many Alec Bradley cigars are produced. The blend consists of a Honduran wrapper from the Trojes region; two binders (one Nicaraguan from Jalapa and the other Honduran from Trojes); and Nicaraguan filler from Estelí (Criollo ’98 and Corojo ’99). Alec and Bradley intended this cigar to be medium-full in strength, leaning toward the full side.
It will come in 20-count boxes and offered in three sizes: Robusto, at 5 inches by 52 ring gauge ($8.95); Toro, at 6 by 52 ($10); and Gordo, 6 by 60 ($10.95).
“We were only allowed three pairs of rollers for the project,” said Alec. “Because this is our first offering into the market, we can’t take away from Alec Bradley’s regular production. If people enjoy Blind Faith, we hope to increase its production and to release something different in the future.”
Blind Faith is scheduled for release at the IPCPR trade show next month, but the company said that an earlier release is possible.
As for the name, Bradley explained: “Even though people have been smoking Alec Bradley cigars for years, they’ve yet to smoke one from Alec and Bradley. And because this will be our first offering to the cigar market, I felt that cigar smokers need to have some blind faith in our abilities. Alec and I went through a big list of names. Blind Faith was the easy choice.”
This article first appeared in the June 5, 2018 issue of Cigar Insider.
