Below is the first of three parts of a lengthy interview I did in his cramped office after his factory had closed for the day. It was more a casual conversation with us smoking some cigars from his desktop humidor. There were plenty of smiles and laughs along the way as he unwound from a long day's work.

SS: Please give us some sort of chronological history of El Credito; where did the name come from, what year it began. I believe it started in Cuba, did it not?

EPC: Right...and well actually, in 1907 my grandfather and his brother started making cigars in the streets of Havana, they used to make like penny and nickel cigars. And basically the El Credito was a factory that was in San Antonio Robanios and my father bought it before World War II. What years were World War II?

SS: 1940 - 1945.

EPC: Yeah. Right, that's when he bought that particular factory. Before that he was buying bulk tobacco for an American factory that bought Cuban tobacco. To resell to Tampa, Key West, and that type of stuff. And you know basically, I would say from 1945 to 1954 - which was when he was elected to the Senate. You know he was involved in that? And then..

SS: This was the Senate in Cuba?

EPC: Right, right. And you know what happened in 1959 and we came over here and he opened in 1968. And I took it over in 1980, when he passed away.

SS: So currently in Cuba there is no other company that's using the name "El Credito?"

EPC: Yeah there is. Well, it's the government.

SS: The government...

EPC: The government owns all the factories in Cuba.

Photo of Ernesto's father hangs proudly in the front of factory.

SS: But your father petitioned for the trademark here in the United States. And was awarded it?

EPC: Right.

SS: How old was your father when he passed away?

EPC: Well he was, let me see... he was seventy-six years old.

SS: And the pictures I see out on the wall near the entrance, like the one with the gentleman in the blue shirt and the chinos, is that him?

EPC: Right, that's him. And the one on the wall there.

SS: How old were you when you first started rolling tobacco or working in the fields? I mean where did you begin, where was your first experience?

EPC: Well, my first one was in Cuba when I was very young. Because we lived on a farm there and we grew our tobacco and also wrapper. We used to have tobacco barns there and that's where I started being around tobacco.

SS: Do you remember how old you were?

EPC: Two, three years...

SS: Really? That young?

EPC: Yeah. <smile>

SS: <laugh> Put you to work! What did you do?

EPC: Well, I didn't work. I just hung out near the tobacco, fermentation, that type of stuff. Because you know we had everything right there on that farm in San Cristobal.

SS: When you started that tutelage did you ... you pretty much have done everything, haven't you, from working in the fields and learning to roll?

EPC: Not really, no...

SS: No?

EPC: Not the fields, no. But here, when I started with my father, I pretty much went through a lot of the stages. I never learned how to make a cigar, but I know how it's made.

SS: How old were you when you smoked your first cigar?

EPC: I was uh...

SS: No lying. <smile>

EPC: <laugh> No, no, no. 1968. I must have been what? Now it's 97, so it's been about thirty some years?

SS: How old were you then?

EPC: About fourteen - fifteen years.

SS: What was it like? I mean did you like it right away?

EPC: No, well I'll tell you what happened. The first cigar I smoked, I remember, I'll never forget, it was a green Panatela Deluxe Canberra. What happened was I had a Ford Mustang and I was working as a musician at that time also, I work here in the day and at night I'd go play. So I was going out to a job, and I'll never forget around 4:41 p.m. and I lit up the cigar and I left my house and I got to the place, sat down behind the drums and started playing and about a half an hour into the thing, I started vomiting. All over the drum set. So that was my first experience with my first cigar.

SS: <laugh> Music, that was a big part of your life at that point. You originally, you wanted to be a musician, correct?

EPC: Yeah. Originally I wanted to play music.

SS: As a drummer?

EPC: Right.

SS: Rock? Jazz?

EPC: Jazz, but the thing with that was that you really couldn't make a living doing that and I had a family to support. And the jobs just weren't... it takes a long time to get known in New York City.

SS: My understanding is that you actually left here, Miami and went to New York City. How old were you about then, when you went up North?

EPC: Must have been about twenty-four or something like that. Twenty-two.

SS: How long did you stay in the city, trying to make a go of it?

EPC: About eight months.

SS: Eight months?

EPC: Yeah.

SS: And you already had a wife?

EPC: Yeah, I had my wife and my daughter and the main reason I came back was , one of them was my father was starting to get sick. He had Lou Gehrig's disease. So my mother would notice something in him, the way he walked, the way... and it was that. After I found that out, I decided to come back.

SS: Were you originally intending on going into the family business? Or were you hoping to in the beginning to go into the music business?

EPC: Well for a while, you know it was um... I always liked the cigars, but in those days the cigars weren't as hot as they are now. And I was seeing what my father was going through, struggling to make cigars to make ends meet. So I wanted a different life, I didn't really want to get into that.

SS: Tough business.

EPC: Yeah. But one of the things that turned me around, when I knew that I wanted to stay in this business was when at one point he wanted to sell the business to people from Royal Jamaica. We were sitting in the broker's office and they were going to offer him a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Which was a lot of money at that time. Something came into me like that, not something that comes...

SS: Family pride?

EPC: Yeah. And I asked him to excuse me, I wanted to talk to him and I asked him not to sell it. So he said, "Well the thing is I can't do this by myself, you gotta help me." So I said, "All right, we'll work together."

SS: What year was that?

EPC: Oh, right after I came back from New York.

SS: Now when you came back from New York, did you still play the drums?

EPC: Yeah.

SS: Do you still play them today?

EPC: No, no. I haven't played them in the last sixteen, seventeen years.

SS: So if I get a drum set in here, you don't think you could give us a riff or two?

EPC: Yeah! I could do it, sure.

SS: Tell me about your family, too. You're married?

EPC: Yeah.

SS: Your wife works here, I've seen her many times.

EPC: Right, right.

SS: Refresh my memory - her name?

EPC: Elena.

SS: And then you have a daughter who is currently in law school?

EPC: Right. I am very proud of her. I also have a son who is fifteen. He started working here part time.

SS: Do you think he's going to carry on in the father/son tradition? Does he have an interest in that?

EPC: Well at that age, you really don't think about those things, you know?

SS: I know.

EPC: It's something that hits you after you get a bit older. You realize you're more mature and know what you want.

PART 1 of 3 | PART 2 | PART 3