Ernesto Perez-Carrillo

Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Jr. is the blender who made non-Cuban La Gloria Cubana a 1990s phenomenon, then started over as Casa Carrillo / E.P. Carrillo. He was born in Pinar del Río in 1951. His father, Ernesto Sr., bought Havana's El Credito factory in 1948, served in the Cuban Senate, and fled to Miami after the Revolution. Ernesto Jr. spent years as a jazz drummer, including a stretch in New York, then came back to Little Havana. When his father died in 1980 he took over El Credito. A 90-point rating in an early issue of Cigar Aficionado (around 1992) turned La Gloria Cubana Wavell into the boutique cigar of the boom. He later opened Dominican capacity to keep up.

In 1999 the family sold El Credito and La Gloria Cubana to Swedish Match, which folded the marca into General Cigar (now under STG). Perez-Carrillo stayed about ten years as blender and ambassador. In that stretch he developed La Gloria Cubana Serie R in large ring gauges, a hit that helped make 60-ring cigars normal. He left in March 2009. His children, Lissette and Ernesto III, asked him to build a family company again. They launched E.P. Carrillo that year. The Santiago factory, leased in April 2009 as Tabacalera La Alianza, was renamed Casa Carrillo in 2024. La Gloria Cubana the brand still belongs to General/Forged, not to him, though in 2025 he blended La Gloria Cubana Los Gloriosos at his own factory for that corporate line.

House cigars from that floor include Pledge, Encore, La Historia, INCH, and related lines. Cigar Aficionado named Encore Majestic Cigar of the Year for 2018 and Pledge Prequel Cigar of the Year for 2020. Daughter Lissette's Kristoff is a separate family marca, not rolled as a Casa Carrillo house line. The Santiago factory also takes contract work (including some Crowned Heads, Gurkha, Casdagli, and Caldwell projects on this graph). Perez-Carrillo is a blender-operator, not an STG employee. If you are asking who he is: Miami La Gloria, then General, then his own Dominican house.