Drew Estate (La Gran Fabrica)

Drew Estate was started by Jonathan Drew and Marvin Samel, who met as fraternity brothers at Oneonta State University, beginning the business at a small cigar kiosk in New York's World Trade Center in the mid-1990s. Facing recurring supply shortages, the pair launched their first cigar line, Vieja Habana, produced with the help of a local roller, before building toward their own manufacturing operation.

In 1998, Jonathan Drew relocated to Estelí, Nicaragua, with a limited budget and a small team of rollers to begin producing cigars directly. The company went on to build La Gran Fabrica, a factory that opened in the mid-2000s and is now counted among the five largest handmade cigar factories in the world, with roughly 96,000 square feet of production space and a tobacco warehouse holding close to 50,000 bales sourced from multiple countries.

The factory produces Liga Privada, Undercrown, Herrera Estelí, Blackened, and other Drew Estate lines, with rolling rooms decorated by the company's in-house Subculture Studios artists. Quality control is done by hand at the bench: workers finishing cigars such as the Flying Pigs shape use a small screwdriver to clear away any jagged pieces of tobacco before a cigar is boxed. An on-site factory shop sells cigars, accessories, and blends made available only at that location, and guided tours take visitors through the rolling floor and tobacco warehouse, including sessions where guests can blend their own cigar.