Jamaican Cigars: What Happened to Temple Hall and Royal Jamaica?

[K Williams]

What happened to the Temple Hall and Royal Jamaica cigar companies? Royal Jamaica used to be one of my favorite cigars many years ago...

 

[blueboy714]

I've often wondered about Royal Jamaica myself. I gave an old boss a sampler pack years ago with a RJ (the one with the tissue paper around it) in it and flipped out after he smoked - he called the place I bought it from and ordered 3 boxes. The last I heard one of the big names purchased them when they went bellyup about a decade ago. I haven't really seen them since, but once or twice and they aren't the same.

The other one I miss is V Centennial. That was a good smoke that was around for years and couldn't survive the cigar bust in the 1990's.

 

[juris1671]

I believe the original royal Jamaica died shortly after the boom in late nineties. It came back but was not all the same. Now gone.

 

[blueboy714]

that's memory too. A lot of companies when under during the cigar craze boom and many rushed product during the craze so their quality went down hill. Romeo & Julieta used to be one of my favorites from the 70's to early 90's but they haven't been the same since the craze.

 

[sean]

Now, I wasn't old enough or in-tune enough in the 90's during the boom, but wasn't there also a hurricane that wiped out most of the Jamaican crop one year that put a few companies out of business?