The cigar world is older than most magazines. The way it gets covered is not. The Next Cigar exists because people who actually smoke deserve writing that respects them — and a place that treats the leaf, the makers and the rituals around them with the same seriousness as the cigar itself.
What we do
News on the brands, regulators and factories that move the industry. Long reads on the history and culture of cigars and the people who make them. Practical writing for people who want to smoke better, not louder. And the Markets board: box prices for 52 Cuban vitolas. We keep a directory of 116 licensed Habanos retailers across 18 European countries and read prices from the 23 that publish them, each price carrying the date it was checked.
How it is paid for
Not by a paywall, and not by anyone on the board. No retailer pays to be listed or to be ranked; the board sends readers to them free, ordered by price. The money comes from the Shop, which sells accessories and clothing at a margin, and from the accessory guides in the magazine, which carry labelled affiliate links. That is the whole business. Sponsorship, if we ever accept it, is labelled on the page and sold around the board, never inside it.
What we will not do
We do not sell tobacco. We do not invent reviews, ratings or awards. We do not call a price "live" unless the scraper read it within the last fortnight, and we do not send you to a page that is sold out on purpose. When we get something wrong we correct it on the same page and say so.
Who writes it
Cristian Ortiz Suárez is the founder and editor: Cuban, living in Malmö, writing about the leaf, the markets and the people who shape the European Habanos world. The site is designed and built by Turquino Studios.
The rooms
Markets is the board. Magazine is the long reads. The Lounge is the members' room — free — with the map and the watchlist. The Shop is our own small line of goods, and the Guatabey guayabera when it exists.