Ernesto Perez-Carrillo is a Cuban-American master blender whose family cigar story spans Havana, Miami's Little Havana, Santiago de los Caballeros, and the modern Casa Carrillo portfolio. His grandfather worked Cuban tobacco streets; his father Ernesto Sr. founded El Credito in Havana in 1948, rebuilt the factory name in Miami after exile, and trained a son who first dreamed of becoming a jazz drummer—not a cigarmaker.
Ernesto Jr. took over El Credito in 1980 and created the blend that exploded into La Gloria Cubana after Cigar Aficionado scores in 1992; Swedish Match purchased the factory in 1999. He worked under General Cigar until March 2009, then returned with his children to build Casa Carrillo and Tabacalera La Alianza in the Dominican Republic's Cibao Valley—rolling cigars the Cuban way with triple caps. Daughter Lissette went on to found Kristoff. Ernesto remains one of the industry's most respected living blenders, connecting Gilded Age Cuban heritage to today's Dominican contract-manufacturing powerhouse.