Brands
ADVentura
Behind ADVentura stands an unusual duo: Swiss sommelier, coffee producer and trader Marcel Knobel, and Dominican blender Henderson Ventura, regarded as one of the youngest master blenders in the industry. In 2016 the two founded ADV & McKay Cigars Co. S.R.L.; production takes place at Tabacalera William Ventura, the family operation of William and Henderson Ventura in the Dominican Republic. In 2017 the first cigars reached the European market; in 2019 the house debuted with The Conqueror at the American trade fair IPCPR — the brand’s journey thus led from Europe to America, not the other way around. The fact that a young Dominican brand first conquered the European specialist trade is unusual and is explained by the biography of its founders.
What distinguishes ADVentura from many young marcas is the consistently narrated brand world: ADV and McKay, two imagined seafarers, sail the globe in search of new flavours. Each line tells another chapter of this voyage — from departure through navigation and conquest to the later pirate chapters, in which buccaneers such as Barbarroja and Blue-Eyed Jack take the stage. Boxes and anillas take up the narrative in their design — the lines, read in sequence, form a continuous story.
The house describes its own ambition as a fusion of Swiss precision and Dominican passion. The handcrafted Long Fillers are produced under Henderson Ventura’s direction; the blends draw on Dominican tobaccos that, depending on the line, are combined with fillers and wrappers from other origins.
The opening was The Explorer, soon followed by The Navigator and The Conqueror. The line The Royal Return encompasses two blends — Queen’s Pearls and King’s Gold; the Queen’s Pearls achieved top positions in several trade publications’ year-end lists in 2021 — second place at Cigar Coop, third at halfwheel — and brought the young brand to international attention. The house then continued the narrative with Barbarroja’s Invasion, Blue Eyed Jack’s Revenge, La Llorona, Piece of Heart, and most recently Blackfin’s Parlay, which brings the pirate cycle to a conciliatory close; alongside these come collector formats such as the Captain’s Collection. The pattern of the range is clear: every line has its own dramaturgical function within the brand cosmos.
Alongside its main lines, ADV & McKay maintains collaborative projects with other manufacturers: La Bucanera is produced in Nicaragua in partnership with Mombacho, El Loco in Mexico together with Alejandro Turrent — both carry the seafaring and adventure motifs of the brand world into other terroirs.
The Swiss connection remains more than mere biographical colour: Knobel’s trading experience shaped the early focus on the European specialist trade, and the brand continues to be run as a Swiss–Dominican partnership to this day. In Switzerland, ADVentura is distributed by ImpCor GmbH.