Bennington Tobacconist
Bennington Tobacconist is celebrating over 50 years of dedication to quality products and exceptional service.
William E. Bennington founded Bennington Tobacconist in 1965. With careful consideration, the location was determined in Saint Armand’s Circle in Sarasota, Florida. Mr. Bennington had the foresight to institute custom hand mixed tobacco blends and hand rolled cigars. Being a family-operated tobacco shop; his three sons, Jack, Jim and Gary grew up in the business. They learned the meaning of service, quality and hard work. To this day, it is still family owned and operated in Sarasota by Jack, Jim and Gary Bennington. They continue to honor their father’s philosophy that quality products should be represented in a proper image.
Bennington Tobacco has hand blended high quality pipe tobaccos since William E. Bennington, the founder, began the company in the fall of 1965. Mr. Bennington was an avid pipe smoker and recognized the opportunity in the lack of high-quality pipe tobacco brands in the U.S. market at that time. There were plenty of domestic “drug store” brands, but few imported brands of the calibers of Dunhill, Erinmore or Rattray’s for example.
In those days the tobacco manufacturers sold the basic blending ingredients i.e., Burleys, Virginias, Latakia, Perique, Maryland and Turkish tobaccos directly to the tobacconist and offered “formulas” as a general guide, which could be tweaked in order to create custom blends.
Bennington Blends No. 10, and No. 24 are two such blends and are still popular today. Blend No. 15 is patterned after the famed “Balkan Sobranie White Label,” which was very popular back then.
Mr. Bennington spent a good part of an evening with tweezers and a scale separating eight ounces of Balkan Sobranie into its component parts of Turkish, Latakia and Virginia to determine the ratios of the blend. He then refined it to his taste and introduced Blend No. 15 in 1966. Blend No. 33 is another original and is still quite popular. Blend No. 33 is patterned after Murray’s Erinmore Flake.
At Bennington’s, they still prefer the original method of buying the basic tobacco component ingredients and creating unique blends from them.
For over 50 years (close to 60 years), Bennington Tobacconist has remained in the same location and has remained true to honor their father’s philosophy of providing excellent service and quality products.
Come and enjoy a large and finest variety of tobacco products, including cigars, humidors, pipes, accessories, lighters and ashtrays, e-liquids and more.
Customer Reviews:
“Fantastic cigar shop! Found my fave Davidoffs at a great price! Highly recommended.” – JC Marin
“Friendly staff, nice selection of tobacco pipes. Decent selection of tobacco and they blend them there- extra bonus. Always nice on St Armand’s Circle. Would recommend and definitely coming again.” – Elizabeth Collins
“Great spot. Selection is vast. History of the store is long. Great stop for cigars on the circle.” – Rick Van House
“My favorite cigar shop of all time. I’ve known and been buying from Jack for over 20 yrs. Solid business, great selection, amazing family!” – SB
“This is usually one of our first and one of our last stops when we visit Sarasota. Pipe tobacco to last for our vacation and then some to take home with us. We also have friends in the area that buy it to ship up north when our stock gets low. The store has an awesome fine tobacco smell, the staff is knowledge and friendly. The pipe selection is great, and the tobacco keeps bring us back.” – Debbie S.
Address:
5 Filmore Drive
St. Armands, Sarasota, FL 34236
941-388-1562
Website:
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