If you’ve smoked cigars for more than a week, chances are you’ve heard about Gurkha Cigars in the cigar lounge. Gurkha specializes mainly in high-end premium cigars the likes of which are bought by the most affluent of Maharaja presiding over his kingdom, yet Gurkha also offers lines for the every day smoker that are out-of-this-world incredible for the price. But there’s always a story behind a name, and that’s where your resident smarty-pants (me) comes in. Behold the history of Gurkha Cigars!
It all started with Kaizad Hansotia, a man of Indian descent, raised in Hong Kong and London who was the son of a wealthy family that made luxury watches and other various timepieces. He was on vacation in India in the ancient year of 1989 (mind you I was born in 1988), when he met a Portuguese man rolling and selling cigars under the name of Gurkha. What a Portuguese man was doing in India rolling cigars, I have no clue, but Kaizad was so fascinated by this art he decided to buy all of the man’s tobacco and entire inventory for a grand total of a whopping $149. The original plan was to use these cigars to hand out to customers as gifts for his family timepiece business. After all, who doesn’t love a good cigar, right?
Kaizad sent one of the first boxes of Gurkha Cigars to his friend who owned a duty free shop, and his customers went nuts wanting to buy more. Kaizad saw an opportunity to make money off of high-end cigars which lead him to pursue well known manufacturers in the industry to help him get started. The first person he talked to was Charlie Torano (perhaps you’ve heard of him?) and Torano cigars agreed to roll Gurkha’s first ever cigars. After this momentous occasion in the history of Gurkha cigars, a brand was born so wonderful that it even made its way to the White House in the 1990s, which will forever be part of Oral Oval Office history.
Okay, so what’s with the name Gurkha? Sure, the Portuguese man in India sold cigars under the name Gurkha, but there is a reason behind the name. If you read the first line in the last section, you’ll notice I mentioned Gurkha Cigar’s 125th Anniversary. Well, how can this be, with a company that was formed in the 1980s? The answer is simple: the name reflects how long cigars have been referred to as Gurkhas, not how long the company has been rolling cigars. Now you’re probably spewing bourbon all over your computer screen, appalled that I would even suggest that you ever once referred to a cigar as a Gurkha. Let me explain.
The term Gurkha was originally a name given to Nepalese fighters who carried those bad ass Khukuri swords. You know, the one the man on the Gurkha label is holding? Well, during the British occupation of nearly the entire world in the late 1880s, colonial soldiers became enamored with the skill and history of the Gurkha warriors in Nepal. As a tribute to these warriors whom the British defeated, all the cigars the colonial soldiers made were called Gurkhas instead of cigars. The name spread through the British colonies, eventually finding its way to India which explains the Portuguese man’s brand name of Gurkha.
Kaizad decided to keep the name after he bought the small company to continue paying tribute to the Nepalese warriors alive and well and to pay honor to the history of British rule. This lead to the various lines of Gurkha Cigars such as the Red Witch under the East India Trading Company line and His Majesty’s Reserve in their limited edition line to be born with such awesome historical names.