Kentucky gentleman Mobley makes cigars with a unique twist

By JIM TRAMMEL, Kentucky Agricultural News

The bourbon-barrel-cured cigars produced by Kentucky Gentlemen Cigar Co. of Lawrenceburg were the first non-food items to bear the Kentucky Proud label.

“Kentucky Proud helped us out a lot,” especially in the five-year-old company’s lean first years, company owner Allen Mobley said. “When we go to shows in Kentucky, we put up the Kentucky Proud sign. A lot of people who see it will try our product for the first time.”

The cigars made by Mobley’s employees are aged in bourbon barrels for six months. The process draws impurities out of the tobacco leaves, Mobley said. The company has arranged with Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort for the use of its Buffalo Trace and Blanton’s Single-Barrel Bourbon barrels, signature and racing thoroughbred crest.

The Kentucky Proud logo is carved into some of the hand-carved Kentucky cedar boxes the company produces. Engraving orders for as few as one box of two cigars, are done for the cost of the cigars, so that an engraved box of two cigars costs $25, and an engraved box of 24 cigars costs $160 to $180, depending on the product.

Having “given cigars away” in the leaner early years, Mobley now sees up to 6,000 cigars a month made and sent out by his workers to destinations from the White House to casinos, golf tournaments, and prestigious special events of all sorts.

He markets in 24 states and 10 other countries, most recently in France.

Mobley’s tobacco comes from a wide range of sources, but his local growers are experimenting with Cuban and Colombian tobaccos grown in Kentucky soils. He purchased dark-fired tobacco from a young tobacco exhibitor at the Kentucky State Fair last year, and he hopes to buy the exhibitor’s product again this year.

For more information about Kentucky Gentlemen Cigar Co., go to www.kentuckygentlemencigars.com.

Kentucky Proud is the Commonwealth’s official farm marketing program. It is administered by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. More than 1,500 producers, processors, retailers, restaurants, farmers’ markets and Kentucky state parks are members of Kentucky Proud. To find out more about Kentucky Proud, go to www.kyproud.com.