Fenn Thompson & Co.

Fenn Thompson & Co. was founded in Woraiyur, a district of Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) in Tamil Nadu, in 1900 by Solaiappan Thevar. The firm took shape during Trichy's peak as a cheroot-making center, an era in which accounts describe roughly 4,000 small cigar-manufacturing units operating in Woraiyur, and its English trading name reflected an export business at the time. More than a century later, Fenn Thompson is the last of those units still operating and is described in current reporting as the only functioning cigar manufacturer left in India.

The company is still family-run, under current proprietor V. Vasudevan, working from a roughly 400-square-foot room with three skilled workers, down from about 70 in the firm's larger era. Tobacco leaf is sourced both domestically and from Nicaragua, Brazil and Peru. Its distinguishing step is a fermentation process Vasudevan has described as using "toddy water, juices from fruits like grape, honey, pineapple." The current range has narrowed to about eight varieties, including the Churchill Special and Black Tiger lines, hand-rolled and packaged in custom teakwood boxes.

The Churchill name references a documented historical episode: Trichy cigars reached Winston Churchill after the Second World War disrupted his usual Cuban supply, and the British government is said to have appointed a "Churchill Cigar Assistant" to keep 10 Downing Street supplied. Fenn Thompson sells on an individual-order basis rather than through conventional retail, relying on word of mouth over advertising, and its cigars also reach customers through third-party Indian cigar retailers that stock the Black Tiger line online.