About Tradewinds Tobacco Co.
Born of the sea and the stories carried upon it, Tradewinds Tobacco Co. was founded to honor a tradition that reaches back long before the voyages which first carried tobacco across the Atlantic. Our name is a reminder of the winds that guided explorers, merchants, and dreamers to distant shores, and of the leaf that became their most treasured cargo.
Yet the story of tobacco begins long before ships crossed the ocean. The Taíno people, indigenous to Cuba, Hispaniola, and much of the Caribbean, viewed tabaco as a sacred gift. To them it was more than an ancient crop, it was a cornerstone of culture, woven into ceremony, healing, and community. From their reverence, we inherit not only the word tobacco, but the very soul of the cigar tradition.
It is in this spirit that Tradewinds was born. Each cigar we provide is an invitation to step into that lineage: rolled with patience, shaped by tradition, and designed to be savored slowly. They are not rushed, nor made for haste, but created to be shared in conversation, in celebration, or in solitude.
At Tradewinds, we believe a cigar is memory and discovery, conversation and communion. It is the ember at the heart of friendship, and the companion of those who dare to chart their own course.
Tradewinds is more than a cigar company. We provide boutique blends that carry forward the ancient culture of tobacco and create moments to be remembered, from our flagship cigars enjoyed by aficionados to bespoke experiences at weddings, breweries, distilleries, and more.
C. W. Hill grew up in St. Augustine, Florida’s ancient city by the sea, founded by Spanish explorers in 1565. It was a place shaped by the Age of Sail, where galleons once carried gold, spices, and tobacco across the Atlantic, and where stories of explorers, pirates, and merchants still linger in the streets.
In that atmosphere tobacco was never just a crop but part of the culture itself, a symbol of ceremony, trade, and connection. Surrounded by that legacy, C. W. entered the tobacco world as a teenager, drawn to its rituals and the sense of history carried in every leaf. Over the years he has built his life around that calling, learning the patience and respect the craft demands.
At 30 he found himself at a crossroads while pursuing a graduate degree at Harvard. It was a dream long in the making, yet another dream pressed against it, older and more enduring. In the end, the choice was simple. He set aside Harvard to remain with the leaf that had shaped his life.
Tradewinds Tobacco Co. is the expression of that decision. It is not simply a trade but a living tradition, carried forward for those who seek something worthy of their own voyage.
