Archive for May, 2008
Cool Stuff Being Made: Avanti Cigar Company
Saturday, May 31, 2008
This week’s “Cool Stuff Being Made” takes us to the American cigar capital of …Scranton, Pa.? You bet. As Dominic Keating, company president, tells us on our factory tour, Avanti Cigar Company is the nation’s largest producer of all-tobacco cigars, exclusively. From the company’s website:
With prices that start at 45 cents each and top out at a dollar and a quarter, the cigar lines produced by Avanti Cigar Company are not status symbols. But for the serious connoisseur who wants to experience a unique, mild, and flavorful smoke, these Italian style cheroots are anything but a step down. “We feel it’s our turn now to be part of the cigar phenomenon” says Tony Suraci, Jr., marketing director and part of the third generation of the Scranton, Pennsylvania-based clan that produces Parodi, DeNobili, Avanti, Petri, and several other regionally recognized brand names for the Toscano-style cigar market. All told, the company manufactures and distributes over 30 million 100% U.S. tobacco cigars annually. While those numbers might sound impressive, the company routinely sold two to three times that number during its heyday in the 1960s. Nonetheless, Avanti still produces more all-tobacco cigars than any other U.S. company.
Mr. Keating does a nice job of explaining the machinery and processes and people, with lots of detail along the way. To Pennsylvania Cable Network, we say grazie for providing the video.