General Cigar Dominicana

General Cigar Dominicana is the Dominican arm of General Cigar Co., which also operates in Honduras and Nicaragua. The Santiago plant is one of the larger premium operations in the country and carries the group's most commercially significant brands: Macanudo, the Dominican Partagas, the non-Cuban Cohiba, La Gloria Cubana and Ramon Allones. The plant is among the larger employers in the Santiago cigar sector and forms part of a group with production in three countries.

The company is vertically integrated to an unusual degree for a corporate manufacturer, growing tobacco for its own blends rather than relying entirely on the leaf market, and it has long-standing Connecticut shade operations supporting the Macanudo line. Its Dominican production shifted decisively upward when Macanudo moved from Jamaica in 2000. Connecticut shade is an expensive wrapper to grow under cloth, and few manufacturers farm it directly rather than buying it on the leaf market.

General Cigar has been part of Scandinavian Tobacco Group since the group acquired the American cigar portfolio, and it is the counterparty in the long-running Cohiba trademark litigation with Cuba's Cubatabaco. The factory does not run public tours. Public sources do not give a consistent founding date, so none is recorded here. That litigation is among the longest-running trademark disputes in consumer goods, and it has been decided in different directions at different stages.