Anyone who spends even a little bit of time in the cigar business can’t help but start comparing it to that other exclusive select industry, wine making.

Both are born of the soil, revolve around the annual harvest and produce a product that needs a bit of aging — something that Keith Park, founder and president of Prometheus International, has made into a bit of a science when it comes to stogies.

“There’s a complexity and balance that comes with aging,” he says. “When cigars are first made, they’re raw — the taste is strong. But all the rough edges get rounded out with age; it gets more balanced and complex.”

That’s one of the principles behind his God of Fire vintage releases, where cigars are aged for two full years before they’re released to your humidor. “The ones in May 2008 are the 2006 production; the year after, we’ll have a 2007.” It’s the highlight of a 12-month period that included November’s release of the Don Carlos thirtieth Anniversary Cigar, produced exclusively for Park by Carlos Fuente Sr. and Jr. (Don Carlos and Carlito, respectively), using a wrapper grown on the Fuentes’ farm in the Dominican Republic — the site of the first wrapper grown on the island ever.

And in the midst of all this, Park and company somehow found a way to fit in their annual high-profile charity dinner, the proceeds of which are split in half and donated to the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation (founded by the Fuente and Newman families) and to Gary Sinise’s Operation Iraqi Children, which sends school supplies to the war-torn country; because even if your business revolves around aging, some things simply can’t wait.

godoffire.com

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