Big River Trading Company is becoming known as one of the best tobacco suppliers in the world. The company is a division of the Meskwaki Nation’s economic development branch, Meskwaki, Inc. and is located in Iowa.
The company now has the rarest category of the collectible Dominican cigars in the market place under the name Renards. “Renards” comes from the French word meaning “fox,” given to the “Sac and Fox Tribe,” also known as the Meskwaki.
This premium line of cigars and cigarettes utilizes high-quality tobacco that is grown in the Dominican Republic. Many cigar enthusiasts note that cigars from the Dominican are quite comparable, if not better, than Cuban cigars. “Imagine, if you will, smoking a little bit of history with very rich complexity of flavors that are so rarely available,” explains Carol Guetschow.
After the Cuban trade embargo was put in place by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, Americans were not allowed to do any business with Cuba, including the wildly popular cigar trade. Essentially, buying a Cuban cigar became illegal, and remained so throughout the Cold War. However, within a similar climate zone lies the Dominican Republic. While Cuba still has a tight grip on the cigar industry, the Dominican has stepped up to become a world leader in the cigar world, today producing more than 160 million cigars yearly. Its estimated that are more than five thousand active harvesters, and thousands more that work in the production of cigars in the Dominican.
The Renard’s line of tobacco is hand rolled with natural wrappers for quality assurance and consistency by craftsman in the Dominican. After shipment to the United States, the product is kept in a humidity-controlled warehouse to keep the product in a perfect atmosphere prior to shipment to its final destination: your humidor.
“We only use tobacco that’s known to be the finest tobacco the Dominican can produce,” explains Meskwaki, Inc. CEO Mark Hubble. “One of the reasons Cuban cigars are so coveted is because they are only recently allowed back into the States, and prior to that, because they were illegal to buy.”
Renards currently offers cigarillos, Renards Coronas, Renards Maduro, Renards Churchills, Renards Dominicans and coming soon, Dominican Double-Wrapped.