Renier Lorenzo was born in Havana City, Cuba. That’s where his HVC cigar company got its name. But unlike many ex-pat cigar men, he didn’t work in the tobacco fields or follow his father and uncles into the cigar business. Instead, he studied animals. Once he made his way to Wisconsin, he settled into a job in an animal genetics lab.
What’s the path from there to cigars? Well, a relationship with Aganorsa founder Eduardo Fernandez brought Lorenzo to Nicaragua. There, he saw the tobacco fields stretching out under the sun, with lush green leaves speaking to him of more of nature’s miracles. For a man with a keen scientific mind, yet another of the world’s most fascinating topics had begun speaking to him.
Or maybe he was just tired of cold, dark Wisconsin winters. We’ll have to ask him sometime!
He worked with the Aganorsa team to produce his own cigar line called HVC cigars. When he traveled back stateside, he split his time between his day job and his efforts traveling around the Midwest to cigar retailers to build his brand. Like Rocky Patel and many others who built their brand one shop at a time, Lorenzo’s hard work paid off. HVC cigars eventually were sold to hundreds of tobacconists and were a modest success.
His approach was to focus on four keys – construction, flavor, balance, and one surprising quality: a clean finish. Cigars deliver many things but a “clean finish” is probably not usually one of them. For a product that is spicy and smoky, how would one even define what a clean finish would be? Well, toast up an HVC to try to find out.
Lorenzo also had the common desire of any Cuban ex-pat to build a few cigars with a decent Cubanesque profile that everybody can smoke. So far, so good. Both the Hot Cake and Cerro blends have earned high ratings thanks to a flavorful mix of Nicaraguan tobacco and Mexican wrapper leaves. The profiles of these smokes have shown plenty of spiced complexity and demonstrate an intriguing approach to blending. Undoubtedly, HVC cigars will continue to offer high-quality blends for many years to come.
Please browse our selection of HVC cigars at your leisure.
