P La Cangri, one of the best DJs and Latin musicians in New York, visited Davidoff of Geneva a few years ago, and that’s when it all started.She initially learned about Graycliff, a small-batch luxury cigar company, there.
Graycliff, a luxury Mecca with one of the best restaurants in the region and a boutique hotel, is a special place for fans of Caribbean tourism.
It also houses a highly regarded cigar factory that produces hundreds of thousands of cigars annually from ultra-fine leaves from nations like Ecuador and Costa Rica. Connoisseurs particularly adore Graycliff cigars on the US market.
P, as she is jokingly called, was smoking a cigar at Nassau’s Graycliff Sky Lounge on the rooftop a few years later. Graycliff called for her after the manager recognized her.
She was introduced to Paolo Garzaroli, a co-founder of Graycliff Cigar Company, and the two of them started one of those endless days of Cuban rum and cigars, talking about her favorite brands, Davidoff Nicaraguas and Cuban Juan Lopez.
“It was hours,” she says. “Time was flying, and I said ‘I’m at a point in my life where I should have my own cigar. That was it, we shook hands and had a deal.”
And thus the “Boss of the Block” was born.
It was a few months later that Graycliff showed up to the industry’s top event, PCA, in Las Vegas, and debuted the new Boss of the Block, with P as DJ.
“It took everybody by surprise,” she says. “It was the hit of the whole show.”
Sales have been good thus far, and according to her, BOTB is already expanding its sizes and vitolas.
The response has been phenomenal, and we’re trying to catch up with production because we sold out, she says. Graycliff, I say. They take great care. Their quality assurance is insane. The whole narrative begins with Avelino Lara, Castro’s personal roller, who created Cohiba and traveled to The Bahamas to collaborate with Enrico [Garzaroli].
With a bold, vibrant appearance that’s a breath of fresh air in the business, it’s a new sort of cigar for a new age of pleasure.
Furthermore, it’s a brand-new blend of music and cigars.
“Music and cigars go hand in hand,” she says. “It’s cool when I walk into the club and bring a cigar, it goes hand in hand it’s not marginalized.”
P is keen to point out that this is a cigar for connoisseurs even as she admits the relative rarity of a female DJ blending a cigar.
“It’s for people who know about cigars,” she says.
So where does the name come from?
“They call me La Jefa del Bloke, the Boss of the Block,” because I run the block. When you come into the club, I control the crowd, so I’m the boss,” she says. “I think everybody wants to be a boss. Who doesn’t want to be a boss?”
