Henry Clay (cigar)

Henry Clay
Product type	Cigar
Owner	Imperial Brands
Produced by	Altadis USA
Country	United States
Introduced	1840s
Markets	United States
	Carcinogenicity: IARC group 1

Henry Clay is an American brand of cigars named after the early American politician Henry Clay.^[1] The cigars are currently manufactured in the Dominican Republic.^[2] The brand is currently owned by the Spanish company Altadis, a subsidiary of Imperial Brands.

History[edit]

Henry Clay was founded in the 1840s by a Spanish immigrant to Cuba, Julián Álvarez Granda.^[3] The brand was nationalized by Fidel Castro's government following the Cuban Revolution, and manufacturing was severely reduced throughout the 1960s.^[4]

The cigar's American Trademark was owned by the Henry Clay and Bock & Co. Ltd. located in Trenton, New Jersey. Henry Clay and Bock & Co. Ltd. became a component of the Tobacco Trust that, along with other trusts, was an object of the antitrust legislation of the United States.^[5]

By 1986, Henry Clay's American trademark was owned by Consolidated Cigar Corpation, which started producing non-Cuban Henry Clays. The Consolidated Cigar Corporation was eventually purchased by Altadis.^[6]

In popular culture[edit]

In the Russian and Soviet poet, playwright and actor Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky's 1925 poem Блек энд уайт/Black and White [ru] portraying issues of racism and capitalist exploitation, the setting is a Henry Clay and Bock Ltd. cigar factory in Havana.
Maurice Leblanc's gentleman thief Arsène Lupin was noted to have used a Henry Clay cigar to conceal a reply to an invented associate as a part of his escape from jail in Arsène Lupin in Prison.
In the film Blackmail (1929 film) the blackmailer is offered a Henry Clay cigar but instead chooses a Corona.
In George Simenon's novel, Pietr the Latvian [fr], the book's namesake is observed by Inspector Maigret smoking a Henry Clay cigar.
The Kurt Weill song 'Matrosen-Tango' (Sailor-Tango) includes the lyric 'Und Zigarren rauchen wir Henry Clay ... Denn andere Zigarren, die rauchen wir nicht' (And we smoke Henry Clay cigars... we don't smoke any other cigars).
In Thomas Mann's 1924 novel The Magic Mountain, the character Hofrat Behrens remarks that he almost died smoking "two small Henry Clay's".

References[edit]

^ Joyce, James; Johnson, Jeri (1998), "Notes to paes 235-240", Ulysses, Cambridge: Oxford University Press: 873, ISBN 978-0-19-283464-5
^ Shanken, Marvin R. (2005), Cigar Companion, Cambridge: Running Press, p. 41, ISBN 978-0-7624-1957-9
^ "DEATH OF JULIAN ALVAREZ.; A MAN WHO MADE MILLIONS OUT OF THE FAMOUS "HENRY CLAY" CIGAR". The New York Times. December 17, 1885.
^ Communications inc, M. Shanken. "Henry Clay War Hawk Gets A Churchill". Cigar Aficionado. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
^ Moody, John (1904), The Truth About The Trusts: A Description and Analysis of the American Trust Movement, New York: Moody Publishing Company, p. 91
^ Inc, M. Shanken Communications. "Henry Clay War Hawk Gets A Churchill". Cigar Aficionado. Retrieved October 24, 2023. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)

External links[edit]

Henry Clay at Altadis USA

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[Ulysses-1] Joyce, James; Johnson, Jeri (1998), "Notes to paes 235-240", Ulysses, Cambridge: Oxford University Press: 873, ISBN 978-0-19-283464-5

[2] Shanken, Marvin R. (2005), Cigar Companion, Cambridge: Running Press, p. 41, ISBN 978-0-7624-1957-9

[3] "DEATH OF JULIAN ALVAREZ.; A MAN WHO MADE MILLIONS OUT OF THE FAMOUS "HENRY CLAY" CIGAR". The New York Times. December 17, 1885.

[4] Communications inc, M. Shanken. "Henry Clay War Hawk Gets A Churchill". Cigar Aficionado. Retrieved February 6, 2023.

[5] Moody, John (1904), The Truth About The Trusts: A Description and Analysis of the American Trust Movement, New York: Moody Publishing Company, p. 91

[6] Inc, M. Shanken Communications. "Henry Clay War Hawk Gets A Churchill". Cigar Aficionado. Retrieved October 24, 2023. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)

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