Henry Clay

Henry Clay is one of the oldest surviving Cuban-heritage cigar brands in the world, with roots in Havana stretching back to the 1840s when Spanish immigrant Julian Alvarez Granda founded the factory that would bear the name of the celebrated American statesman. Henry Clay (1777-1852), the Kentucky senator known as "The Great Pacificator" for his legendary ability to forge compromise and avert conflict, was among the most admired political figures of his era and a natural choice to anchor a brand aimed at the American market. Rudyard Kipling immortalized the brand in his 1888 poem "The Betrothed" with the line "There's peace in a Larranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay," giving it a place in literary history that few cigars can claim.
The brand passed through British ownership and eventually into the hands of the major tobacco trusts of the early 20th century before going dormant around the time of the Great Depression. It was revived in the late 1990s under Consolidated Cigar Corporation, which later merged with Altadis, and today the Dominican production line is made at the Tabacalera de Garcia factory in La Romana. The non-Cuban Henry Clay is deliberately rustic in presentation, using a Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper that is toothy, dark, and intentionally unfussy in appearance. The Dominican filler and binder underneath deliver a medium-to-full-bodied smoke with earthy, spicy character. The Habana 2000 series in this database, with Mirabelle and Obelisk vitolas, was an earlier limited expression that predates the current standard line.