Cigar country
Honduran cigars
Honduran cigars are made mostly in and around Danlí, a highland city near the Nicaraguan border, from leaf grown in the Jamastrán valley. Cuban exiles built most of the industry in the 1960s.
Honduras in nine dates
Honduran tobacco has a colonial past, but the cigar industry people know today dates from the 1960s.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1765 | The Spanish crown sets up a royal tobacco trading post near Santa Rosa, in Copán. |
| 1960s | Cuban exiles arrive as Cuba nationalizes its cigar industry. The Honduran government starts backing the new companies. |
| 1963 | Julio Eiroa comes to Honduras and starts building tobacco farms, per Wikipedia. |
| 1978 | The Plasencia family leaves revolutionary Nicaragua for Danlí and the Jamastrán valley. |
| 1985 | Plasencia opens its first Danlí factory with five rollers. |
| Early 1990s | Honduras becomes the second-largest source of cigars for the US market, behind the Dominican Republic. |
| 1998 | Hurricane Mitch wipes out most of the tobacco crop and cripples roads and power. |
| 2008 | Davidoff buys Camacho from the Eiroa family. The Eiroas keep their Jamastrán farms. |
| Q1 2026 | For the first time, Honduras ships more premium cigars to the US than the Dominican Republic. |
Dates from Tobacco Asia (2017), Cigar Aficionado (2026) and the Camacho and Plasencia guides on this site.
Copán grew tobacco first
Copán, in the far west near Guatemala, is where Honduran tobacco has its oldest roots, going back to a royal Spanish trading post set up in 1765.
It was a royal post, run for the Spanish crown. The tobacco outlived the empire. Santa Rosa de Copán is still a producing area today. It's just not where the premium cigar boom landed.
Why did Cuban exiles pick Honduras?
Cuban growers came to Honduras in the 1960s because the land could grow Cuban-seed tobacco and the government was willing to back them.
Tobacco Asia says the major players "arrived as Cuban exiles in the 1960s," during the nationalization of Cuba's cigar industry, and that the Honduran government started sponsoring their companies. They brought seed. They brought curing and fermentation know-how. And they brought customers in the US who still wanted a Cuban-style cigar after the 1962 embargo.
Names from that wave still run through the business. Julio Eiroa came in 1963 and built farms in the Jamastrán valley that his family still owns. Frank Llaneza and the Villazon company made Punch and Hoyo de Monterrey from Honduran tobacco for American buyers, after Fernando Palicio sold them his US rights.
A second wave came from the south. When the Sandinistas took over Nicaragua, the Plasencias, already exiles once, moved to Danlí in 1978. They opened a factory there in 1985 with five rollers. Tobacco Asia counted 700 Plasencia rollers across Honduras and Nicaragua by 2017.
Danlí and the Jamastrán valley
Danlí is a city of about 80,000 people, roughly 92 km southeast of Tegucigalpa at about 814 meters, and it's the center of Honduran cigar making.
The factories sit in and around town. The farms sit east of it, in the Jamastrán valley, in the department of El Paraíso. Tobacco Asia calls Jamastrán "to Honduras what the Jalapa Valley is to Nicaragua." Wikipedia sums Danlí up plainly: known for cigars and corn.
The border is close, and the leaf crosses it. Plenty of cigars rolled in Danlí carry Nicaraguan filler, and plenty of Estelí blends use Honduran leaf. Several makers run factories on both sides.
There's a third zone too. The Talanga valley, in the middle of the country about two hours from Jamastrán, grows leaf with a method Tobacco Asia calls "encallado."
Makers rolling in Honduras
Several of the makers profiled on this site roll some or all of their cigars in Honduras, most of them in Danlí.
- Camacho: Made in Danlí; Davidoff-owned since 2008
- Rocky Patel: El Paraíso factory in Danlí, plus Estelí
- Plasencia: Family factories in Honduras and Estelí
- Punch: The US-market version, from Villazon roots
- Hoyo de Monterrey: General Cigar's Honduran Hoyo, separate from the Cuban one
- My Father: Lists a Honduran factory alongside Estelí and Miami
Order means nothing here. It's a who's-where, not a ranking.
Mitch, then a long climb back
Hurricane Mitch in 1998 was the worst blow the Honduran cigar business has taken, wiping out most of that year's tobacco crop.
It hit right after the 1990s cigar boom, when Honduras had become the second-largest source of US cigars. Fields flooded. Roads and power went down. Tobacco Asia dates the end of Honduras's spot behind the Dominican Republic to that year.
The climb back took decades. In the first quarter of 2026, Cigar Aficionado reported that Honduras shipped 17.2 million premium cigars to the US, up 12 percent, and that the Cigar Association of America called it the first time Honduras had out-shipped the Dominican Republic. Through July the two were neck and neck: 44.9 million for Honduras, 46.9 million for the Dominican Republic. Part of that swing was Dominican production moving to Honduras and Nicaragua for a time.
Earth, wood and the Corojo story
Smokers usually describe Honduran leaf as earthy and woody, with real strength behind it, a reputation that leans on the Cuban-seed varieties exile growers planted.
Corojo is the name you'll hear most. It's a Cuban-seed variety, and Davidoff says the Camacho Corojo line uses Honduran Corojo from the Jamastrán valley for wrapper, binder and filler. That said, a Honduran cigar can use Corojo, Habano, Connecticut-seed or Criollo leaf, from Honduras or not. Flavor talk about a country is a tendency. Taste the cigar in your hand and log it in the tasting journal. Compare it with its neighbors in the Nicaraguan cigar guide.
Questions about cigars from Honduras
What part of Honduras grows cigar tobacco?
Mainly the Jamastrán valley near Danlí, in the eastern department of El Paraíso close to the Nicaraguan border. The Talanga valley in the center of the country and the Copán area in the west also grow leaf.
Who started the Honduran cigar industry?
Cuban exiles did most of the building. Tobacco Asia says the major players arrived as exiles in the 1960s, when Cuba nationalized its cigar industry, and the Honduran government began sponsoring their companies.
How did Hurricane Mitch affect Honduran cigars?
Mitch hit in 1998 and wiped out most of that year's tobacco crop while wrecking roads and other infrastructure. Tobacco Asia ties the end of Honduras's run as the second-largest US supplier to that year.
Is Honduran tobacco similar to Cuban tobacco?
Many Honduran fields grow Cuban-seed varieties such as Corojo, a legacy of the growers who came from Cuba. Soil and weather differ, so the leaf is its own thing, and any flavor comparison is a tendency, not a match.
Records behind the Honduras timeline
- Cigars: Spotlight on Honduras (July 11, 2017), Tobacco Asia
- Danlí, Wikipedia
- Premium Cigar Imports Down Slightly In First Quarter (May 18, 2026), Cigar Aficionado
- Latest Import Numbers Show Slight Growth (October 2, 2026), Cigar Aficionado