Ozgener Family Cigars Bosphorus

The former head of and family that launched CAO is now making their historic return and launching Ozgener Family Cigars, debuting a single blend at first; Bosphorus,  which will use an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper over dual binders—Ecuadorian Connecticut and a leaf from Jalapa, Nicaragua—and fillers from the Estelí, Jalapa and Ometepe regions of Nicaragua. It is being produced at Tabacalera Pichardo. Distributed by Crowned Heads Cigars.  Ozgener has been publicly out of the cigar business for more than a decade. In late 2010, General Cigar Co. absorbed CAO as part of a merger between the two companies’ parents—Swedish Match and Scandinavian Tobacco Group—and Ozgener left his role as president of CAO. Tim’s father Cano founded CAO as a pipe business before expanding to cigars. The Ozgeners sold CAO in 2007 though Tim remained the company’s president until 2010. Since then, he has been the president of OZ Arts, an art center he and his father founded in the old CAO headquarters in Nashvill