It began a few years ago, when P La Cangri, one of the top DJs and Latin artists in New York, visited Davidoff of Geneva.
It was there that she was first introduced to a boutique luxury cigar brand called Graycliff.
For Caribbean travel aficionados, Graycliff stands in rarefied ground, a luxury Mecca that’s home to one of the greatest restaurants in the hemisphere and a boutique hotel.
But it’s also home to a sought-after cigar factory, blending hundreds of thousands of cigars each year from ultra-fine leaves from countries like Ecuador and Costa Rica; particularly in the US market, Graycliff cigars are beloved by connoisseurs.
It was a few years later that P, as she’s affectionately known, was enjoying a cigar at the rooftop Graycliff Sky Lounge in Nassau. When the manager found out who she was, Graycliff called for her.
Graycliff Cigar Company co-founder Paolo Garzaroli met her and the pair began one of those endless afternoons of Cuban rum and cigars, talks of her favorites: Cuban Juan Lopez and Ramon Allones and Davidoff Nicaraguas.
“It was hours,” she says. “Time was flying, and I said ‘I’m at a point in my life where I should have my own cigar. That was it, we shook hands and had a deal.”
And thus the “Boss of the Block” was born.
It was a few months later that Graycliff showed up to the industry’s top event, PCA, in Las Vegas, and debuted the new Boss of the Block, with P as DJ.
“It took everybody by surprise,” she says. “It was the hit of the whole show.”
Sales have already been strong, and BOTB is already adding more vitolas, or sizes, she says.
“We sold out, and we’re trying to catch up with production, the response has been amazing,” she says. “It’s Graycliff. They’re meticulous. Their quality control is crazy. The whole history, from Avelino Lara, who was Castro’s personal roller, who invented Cohiba, and came to The Bahamas to work with Enrico [Garzaroli] and the rest is history.”
It’s a new kind of cigar for a new age of indulgence, with a bold, colorful look that’s a breath of fresh air in the industry.
And more importantly, it’s a new fusion of cigars and music.
“Music and cigars go hand in hand,” she says. “It’s cool when I walk into the club and bring a cigar, it goes hand in hand it’s not marginalized.”
And while P acknowledges the relative rarity of a female DJ blending a cigar, she’s quick to emphasize that this is a cigar for aficionados.
“It’s for people who know about cigars,” she says.
So where does the name come from?
“They call me La Jefa del Bloke, the Boss of the Block,” because I run the block. When you come into the club, I control the crowd, so I’m the boss,” she says. “I thinkk everybody wants to be a boss. Who doesn’t want to be a boss?”
For more, visit Graycliff.