I found an interesting story about Mr. Padrón in the New York Times Estelí Journal.
José Orlando Padrón, who believes that cigar smoke brings him luck, has puffed his way through some challenging situations over the years.
As a young man he smoked his way from Cuba, where his family grew tobacco in the prime Pinar del Río region, to a life in exile in Miami. Most of the land where his grandfather began growing tobacco in the late 1800’s, and where his father continued the tradition, was nationalized by Fidel Castro's government shortly after the revolution that brought it to power in 1959.
In Miami, Mr. Padrón smoked through a series of odd jobs, raising enough money to start a small cigar company of his own. Padrón Cigars, in the city’s Little Havana, began in 1964 with a single employee rolling cigars. Back then Mr. Padrón would sell the day’s production for about 30 cents apiece to fellow Cuban exiles longing for the flavorful smokes from back home.
“Still, I think I’m lucky,” he said, estimating this year’s production at 5.5 million cigars. Mr. Padrón’s company has grown steadily over the years, as has its reputation. Industry experts regularly give his full-bodied cigars some of their highest ratings. In Cigar Aficionado magazine’s latest ranking of the 25 best cigars in the world, the Padrón 1964 Anniversary Series Exclusivo was No. 3, behind a Dominican and a Cuban. “It teems with flavor from the first puff, and the carefully cured tobaccos remain tasty and elegant until the very last,” the magazine said.
Mr. Padrón is credited with helping to put Nicaragua on the map when it comes to tobacco. With the United States trade embargo on Cuba restricting access to its cigars, the hunt for other quality locales has been fierce.
After the revolution in Cuba, most of the country’s big producers shifted operations to the Dominican Republic, but Mr. Padrón swears by Central America, where he says the conditions are most similar to Cuba’s. Eleven of Cigar Aficionado’s top 25 cigars now use at least some Nicaraguan tobacco.
Mr. Padrón, 80, began working in his father’s tobacco farm at the age of 7 and is still a hands-on manager a lifetime later. He now shuttles between Miami and Managua and is a constant presence on the factory floor, plucking bad leaves off the table with a disapproving eye and leaving a trail of smoke behind him.
“Don’t even talk about life without cigars,” said Mr. Padrón, a stocky man who speaks in rapid-fire Cuban Spanish and sticks his nose into tobacco leaves to take in the pungent scent as some might smell a rose.
In the 1970’s, Mr. Padrón began growing tobacco derived from Cuban seed here in Nicaragua’s fertile Estelí region. But politics interfered. In 1978, as Sandinista revolutionaries battled the longtime dictator Anastasio Somoza, Mr. Padrón was regarded by some as sympathetic to the strongman. His Nicaraguan factory was burned.
Still, he kept smoking, and eventually he was back producing cigars in this country. To do so, he had to meet with the local comandante and make the case that he was employing hundreds of Nicaraguans and not meddling in politics.
The crises did not let up. In 1979, he and other Cuban exiles went back to Cuba to negotiate the release of political prisoners. In a meeting with President Castro, Mr. Padrón was photographed handing the leader one of his cigars, which riled some of Miami’s anti-Castro hard-liners so much that they repeatedly put bombs in his factory.
A group called Omega 7 claimed responsibility for the attacks, which backfired in the long run. Many in Miami sympathized with him and bought more of his cigars. Mr. Padrón posted this quotation from José Martí, the 19th-century poet and fighter for Cuban independence, on his factory wall: “Men are divided into two groups — those that love and build, and those that hate and destroy.”
There is the Nicaraguan government’s recent decision to restrict the harvesting of local cedar, which he uses to make his boxes. Counterfeit Padróns have begun appearing on the market, prompting him to put a serial number on the band of each of his super premium cigars, which can cost as much as $25 apiece.
Mr. Padrón is sharing the running of the business with his family — Jorge, Orlando, Rodolfo, Lisette and Elizabeth Padrón. Confident of the company’s future leadership, he is nonetheless bracing for the unexpected. “A businessman has to be thinking all the time, dealing with problems,” he said, puffing away. “I do it best when I’m smoking.”
Padrón 6000 Maduro 52 x 5 1/2
News about a new Padrón from Cigar Aficionado..jpg)
This is where the majority of my bands end up. You would find bands all around the house if you looked hard enough...I can think of bunch in a box on my dresser that need to be added.
Today I want to talk about the Padrón 5000 Maduro 56 x 5 1/2. The Maduro wrapper is a dark leathery brown color. It has a beautiful oily sheen and it even looks like its leather. This is an inexpensive smoke that you will enjoy. I purchased a box around 6 months ago for under $100. 
We are going camping this weekend and the great outdoors is a great place to enjoy cigars. The only problem is keeping them safe and secure. I purchased this humidor a couple years ago and it has traveled with me anywhere from stuffed in my golf bag to camping to out of town trips. 
Last night I enjoyed a great smoke from Rocky Patel. It was the The Edge Torpedo Maduro 52 x 6
