Meet The Maker: Cesar Ramirez

Some people enter an industry. Others are born into it. 

César Ramirez belongs to the second kind.

Born in Havana, Cuba, César grew up surrounded by tobacco, not as a luxury, but as life. As a boy, he watched his grandfather work in the tobacco barns, absorbing the rituals of the craft long before he understood their weight. The smells of curing leaf, the patience of fermentation, the quiet pride of honest work. These weren’t lessons taught, they were lived.

Unlike many faces behind modern cigar brands, César didn’t arrive through marketing or management. He rolled cigars. He blended them. He failed, adjusted, tried again.

His early career took shape at the legendary Romeo y Julieta factory, where he learned not just how to make cigars, but how to respect them. How to listen to the leaf. How to recognize when strength needed restraint and when subtlety needed backbone.

From early on, César was labeled a nonconformist. He questioned shortcuts. He resisted trends. He chased something most were told was impossible: a cigar that was full and expressive, yet clean… free of harshness, bitterness, and fatigue.

In 1994, at just 32 years old, César made the decision that would define everything that followed. He escaped Castro’s Cuba on a raft with little more than a dream and a memory. A memory of how old Cuban cigars used to be made. Pure, aromatic and alive with spirit. That memory became his compass.

His journey carried him from Cuba to Las Vegas, and eventually to the fertile valleys of Nicaragua. Along the way, César spent decades experimenting: testing blends, fermentation methods, and rolling techniques. Always refining. Always resisting the industry’s push toward speed and sameness.

What ultimately set César apart was his willingness to do what others wouldn’t. Where traditional fermentation stopped, he continued. His daring third fermentation, now a cornerstone of Bariay 1492, was born from persistence. This additional step allowed harsh compounds to break down naturally, softening the smoke without stripping the tobacco of its oils, nicotine, or depth. It was a solution few believed in, until they tasted it.

In Nicaragua, César met Wilfredo Ponce, a tobacco farmer with dirt under his nails and pride in his fields. Wilfredo recognized something rare in César: a man who respected the leaf as much as the land it came from. Together, they pushed against industry norms embracing top-priming leaves, old Havana rolling traditions, and time-intensive processes most manufacturers avoid.

They weren’t just rolling cigars. They were protecting a philosophy.

Bariay 1492 is not a brand built to impress quickly. It’s built to endure. Every cigar reflects César’s belief that cigars should feel right again: clean-burning, balanced, and expressive. And not saved only for milestones but woven back into the everyday, the way they once were.

César lives and breathes cigars because they are not just his profession. They are his inheritance. And through Bariay 1492, that inheritance lives on.

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