The Non-Conformist Cigar,
From a Non-Conformist Man
and it’s the same word that has followed its founder his entire life:
non-conformist.
It’s in the process. All cigar tobacco goes through a standard two fermentation process.
Bariay goes one step further, with a third fermentation – a trade-secret,
proprietary step that removes the residual ammonia, a byproduct of the process
and other impurities left over from first and second fermentation. It is an extra
step taken to create a smoke reminiscent of the old Cuban craft lost during the
shift to mass production. A lost art.
The payoff is a cigar that is uniquely different from anything you smoke today.
It is smooth, cool to the nub, consistent, easy to draw without the bitterness
or that harsh aftertaste you often get at the end. When cigar tobacco goes through
the third fermentation process, the typical cigar hangover the next day is gone
and the smell doesn’t cling to your clothes.
Further, keeping the tobacco natural and authentic is Bariay’s core;
glycerin is not used on the wrapper to keep it uniform in color.
Every wrapper is left completely natural, nothing artificial to cover
up what the leaf really is because of the belief that the tobacco process,
the recipes, and the aging should speak for themselves.
in the man behind it all.
César Ramirez was born into the tobacco kitchen barns of Cuba with
his grandfather and trained at the Romeo y Julieta where he became
a master blender and roller as a young man. As a young boy, his family
lived above the Partagas factory.
He would go through the factory each day to fetch water for his family
with the aromas forever etched in his sensories. He learned the craft
from the ground up, but his life was never a straight line.
At just ten years old, César was turned into Castro’s regime by his own
family because of his non-conformist beliefs and spirit. He spent the next
two decades in and out of conversion camps, a long and painful effort to
force him to conform.
At 32, during the great Cuban raft crisis of 1994, César fled Cuba
on a makeshift raft with three other men, crossing the sea with nothing
more than the idea of the American dream and freedom in his mind.
From Cuba, his journey carried him to Las Vegas and finally to the fertile
valleys of Nicaragua. There, through years of relentless experimentation
and sheer grit, he perfected his processes that would become Bariay 1492’s
signature third fermentation.
Along the way, plenty of industry professionals told him his process was
impossible, deeming him the “Crazy Cuban”. César’s answer was to go ahead
and do it anyway. From people, to the sea, to the industry, nothing has been
able to make him bend from his dream of a cigar made in the old Cuba ways.
A cigar that honors those long lost traditions, his memories, his training
and his family origins.
That’s the story of this brand in a single word: non-conformist.
And it’s a story that’s resonating. Since launching in October 2025,
Bariay 1492 has grown to more than 80 retailers in 18 states across
the country, obtaining new retail partnerships weekly.
Within the cigar community, the brand is being called “ultra boutique”,
a label earned specifically because of César’s third fermentation and
his process that has taken his lifetime to perfect.
Non-Conformists.
the non-conformists are smoking.
