In 2017, Brian Desind, together with his wife, Ofelia, established Privada Cigar Club, which is now one of the pre-eminent premium cigar subscription services, primarily in the US and Canada. I have been following Privada on social media for a few years now and was pleased to discover that my cigar connect is now bringing some of their cigars to SA.
The story of how Desind found a home in the world of cigars has it’s own twists and turns, including involvement in the music industry before shifting to the transport industry. As a sneaker head who had built a significant collection that he outgrew, he started collecting rare, aged and limited-edition cigars instead.
Desind says his love of cigars is rooted in “the ritual. The stillness. The art of doing nothing — on purpose. Cigars taught me to slow down and pay attention. To taste life one puff at a time. Somewhere between the silence and the smoke, I found a kind of peace I didn’t know I needed. And once you find that kind of thing, you chase it. Forever.” This sentiment resonated with me. What initially drew me to cigars was time — how they coax you into taking time for yourself, away from the maddening crowd.
Having accumulated a sizeable collection and then having to downsize living arrangements which left little room for his cigars, Desind tried to sell his cigars on online platforms. The offers he was getting didn’t match the rarity of the cigars in his collection so he started writing about each cigar, providing background, where the tobacco was from, flavours notes and ageing. The next step was curating a monthly three-cigar pack to send out to subscribers, with a detailed write-up to accompany the pack.
The evolution of Privada Cigar Club feels both organic and serendipitous, driven by Desind’s passion for storytelling, daring to play the game on his own terms, and an outspokenness that has garnered him both fans and detractors.
He describes Privada as “not a cigar club. It’s a counterculture. A tribe. A secret handshake among people who don’t just smoke cigars — they live them. We deal in stories, flavour, history. We uncover, we resurrect, we celebrate the things that would otherwise vanish without a trace.”
He goes on to say, “I was bored with the b*llsh*t. Big brands pushing the same tired blends, no story, no soul. I wanted to dig deeper. I wanted to find the lost cigars, the misfit masterpieces, the stuff you only hear about in whispers. Privada wasn’t a business plan — it was a rebellion. A way to bring back the mystery, the thrill, the flavour of the unknown.”
As the reach of Privada grew, instead of simply starting a cigar brand — which can be a long, cumbersome and expensive process — Desind approached Cuban cigar producers AJ Fernandez about collaborating on a cigar. “I walked in with a vision and a palate — and the guts to ask for what I wanted,” he noted. “He saw I wasn’t just another suit pushing boxes. I cared. That first blend wasn’t just a hit, it was a message: we’re here, and we’re doing things differently.”
Privada has gone on to create, by some estimates, more than 100 unique, exclusive and distinct collaborative releases. These go out to subscribers and the Limited Cigars Association, established by Desind in 2020, supplies small batches of exclusive cigars to cigar shops around the US.
So far, I have sampled the Cream Chocolate figurado from the Cream series, the 1491 Toro and my current favourite, the Blue Cheese, a Nicaraguan Puro that is the first cigar crafted at the jointly operated AJ Fernandez/Privada Tabacalera Annex factory in Nicaragua.
For Desind, the collaboration process “starts with a vibe. A memory. A weird idea scribbled on a napkin. Then we chase it. We try things that shouldn’t work. We scrap 20 blends to find one that sings. Then we wrap it in art, context and intention. From seed to story, we build something worth remembering.”
He likens deciding who to collaborate with to casting a film. He looks for people with a story, a scar, a little madness in their method. People who live for the leaf; who lose sleep over the smallest detail. He wants to engage with craftsmen, not businessmen.
Brian Desind and Privada Cigar Club have come a long way from the days when Desind felt “everything was stacked against [him]. No road map, no respect from the industry, no-one to lean on. I had to fight for every blend, every connection, every shipment. And I did it all while people told me I didn’t belong. But I knew what I was building, even when no-one else did.”
In late 2024, Privada switched to a members-only model. According to reports, the collection of rare, aged cigars has dropped from 4-million to less than 2-million and, as a result, they are now only available to members. Nevertheless, Privada Cigar Club offers something rare: a pause, a story, a sense of connection and they’re here to stay.
