For a smoker, tobacco brands are a fundamental part of the smoking ritual. A way to define, to a large extent, the personality of each smoker. Something logical if we consider that it is in each mixture of tobaccos where those aromas and flavors of each draft reside. An authentic perfume that everyone chooses according to their tastes. Something that also makes smokers feel weak and present fidelity to certain brands of tobacco.
The number of tobacco brands on the market is very large. A huge range of options to play fruit smoke, spicy or with a mixture of both.
But, beyond going into detail the characteristics of the different tobacco brands, let’s look at them from a different point of view. From the knowledge of their history, their tradition or what makes them different from others. From that perspective in which originality and difference set the tone.
So let’s look at eleven brands of tobacco that are distinguished from the others for multiple reasons.
1. Mac Baren
Founded in 1887 by Harald Halberg, Mac Baren is the result of more than a century of tradition. It began as one of the pioneering tobacco factories in Denmark and, still today, exports to more than 70 countries around the world.
Although it has a good number of products in its portfolio, its line of pipe tobacco that it introduced in 1958 stands out. A true hallmark of the brand that also works with other tobaccos, such as rolling or smokeless tobacco.
2. Borkum Riff
Historically, it is one of the tobacco brands with the highest sales worldwide. It began its journey in 1962 in Sweden to expand, only six years later, to the United States. His name is also part of the identity of his tobacco. Borkum Riff is a lighthouse located in a bay on the Danish coast of the North Sea.
A character that is not only reflected in the design of its label, which presents a boat, but also in the characteristics of its pipe tobacco, worked with master mixers of international prestige.
3. Dunhill
It is impossible not to mention Alfred Dunhill when we are talking about tobacco brands. He opened his first tobacconist in 1907 in London and, allowing himself to be carried away by his entrepreneurial character, he would soon see in the manufacture of pipe tobacco a business opportunity. In the beginning, his tobacco dispensed mixtures of tobacco tailored to the tastes of each smoker. A way to adapt a top quality raw material to the preferences of each customer.
Its success was such that it is not only today, still one of the reference tobacco brands. In addition, in his time he became a supplier to the British Royal House for several decades.
4. Ashton
In addition to having gone down in history for being the craftsman who gave life to the homonymous pipes, Ashton-Taylor also gave life to his own line of pipe tobacco. In alliance with an importer and an American cigar products, they began to create mixtures that would enjoy a good reputation among smokers. His British partnership with Robert McConnell would bring with it, in 1989, a change of rudder for this tobacco brand.
And it’s not only McConnell that he sold all his blend recipes to a German company, Kohlhase und Kopp. In addition, K&K would be forced to change its recipes due to the impossibility of creating them the same. Something that brought with it the birth of a new line of tobacco brands, always under the name Ashton.
5. Rattray’s
Opened in 1903, it was one of the largest tobacco companies in the British Isles. Despite his mastery in tobacco mixtures, Charles Rattrays never launched into the design of smoking pipes. Despite this, he did maintain a close collaboration with English pipe manufacturers to have their own private label designs.
Currently, Rattray’s is one of the tobacco brands of the large German company Kohlhase and Kopp.
6. Davidoff
Although cigar is their hallmark, the Davidoff house is much more than that: they are also makers of mixtures of tobaccos, cigarettes and pipes. Among the tobacco brands, it is distinguished by being one of the luxury labels. Of Swiss origin, Davidoff’s story is that of a man, Zino, who would engage in the tobacco trade by inheritance. Son of cigar dealers and manufacturers, the anti-Semitism of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century forced them into exile in Geneva.
Thus would be born the first tobacco store of the family that, after a long trip by Zino through Latin America and discovering cigars, gave a 180-degree turn to the business to transform it into one of the most relevant tobacco brands in the world.
7. Peterson
As with other tobacco brands, Peterson’s story is also one with a man with a business vision. Charles Peterson, master pipe craftsman of Latvian origin, decided to join forces with two brothers from Dublin. The objective of this merger was to offer, in the store that they had at retail, products related to tobacco and the art of smoking.
An initiative that, in just a few years, broadened its horizons to become one of the most prestigious tobacco brands of the time. A recognition that, still, endures today.
8. Samuel Gawith
Unlike what happens with other tobacco brands, Samuel Gawith’s name does not honor its founder. Rather, it refers to the son-in-law of this one who is, in fact, guided by curiosity and intuition decided to start marketing tobacco in England. We are talking about Thomas Harrison: a man who would start in this world from scratch, learning in Glasgow the trade of making and mixing tobacco.
The relay would be taken by his son-in-law, Samuel Gawith, who would start making pipe tobacco and inherit the family business to exploit it with his name as a brand.
9. Cornell& Diehl
One of the most recent tobacco brands and not without history. Cornell & Diehl is nothing more than the American firm that was born in 90 of the last century; and that brought together one with more tradition: Atlas Blending, founded in 1880. The beginnings of this tobacco brand focused on exploiting the old mixtures of the company they absorbed.
With his move to North Carolina, other recipes typical of this tobacco brand would begin to be born.
10. W.O. LARSEN
Founded in 1864 by Wilhem Ockenholt Larsen, it began as a tobacco store located in the center of Copenhagen. In a short time, it became the most luxurious and exclusive cigar shop in the city. A title that made a good part of the nobility have this store as one of its references.
His name was such among the bourgeoisie and the upper classes that, in 1913, his cigars were worthy of being the official supplier of the Royal Court of Sweden.
11. Solani
We leave for the end one of the oddities in tobacco brands. Behind Solani hides the initiative of a mixer craftsman who, with his recipes, has earned the best ratings in international tobacco forums.
Its founder, Rudiger L. Will, didn’t just grow up in his father’s tobacco factory. In addition, he studied throughout the world the cultivation of tobacco, its processing and manufacturing methods. That’s how in 1990 he created his first line of pipe tobacco. A starting point to make, since then, mixtures as natural as possible for gourmet palates.