Winston Cigarettes

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Winston cigarettes are manufactured for or by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company or its newer incarnation as RJR Nabisco and/or its affiliates.

The brand was introduced in 1954, and became the best-selling brand of cigarettes in the United States. It held the #1 spot from 1966 to 1972, thanks to the successful marketing slogan "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." In the last national survey in 2005, Winston ranked sixth in market value, tied with Kool. Winston is also known as delicious and for its more recent claim of being "additive free" although a secondary warning label on their advertisements states that "no additives in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette" which comes out of an FTC settlement involving both Winston and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco.

During the 1980s, Winston cigarettes became the most popular brand in Puerto Rico, probably because of their marketing "Winston y Puerto Rico: No hay nada mejor" ("Winston and Puerto Rico: There is nothing better"), as well as their cultural association with the "salsa sensual" or "salsa erotica" movement.

In 1999, Winston-Salem introduced a new cigarette to the Eastern European market, the Winston One. The cigarette got its name from having only one mg of tar, yet having a full mg of nicotine. Eastern European smokers were not satisfied with the new cigarette, sales began to drop, and the line was discontinued in 2001. Since then Winston One has been marketed as an ultra-light cigarette currently available on the European market. This product features a very low 0.1 mg of tar per cigarette. This is one of the lowest in the marketplace, especially in Eastern Europe.

It is readily available in the EU, except in the UK, where it is not sold.

From 1972-2003, Winston served as the title sponsor of the premier-level of NASCAR, the Winston Cup Series (now known as the Sprint Cup Series).

R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR), based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and founded by R. J. Reynolds in 1874, is the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S. (behind Altria Group). RJR is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc.

In 1987, a bidding war ensued between several financial firms to acquire RJR Nabisco. Finally, the private equity takeover firm, Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts & Co (commonly referred to as KKR) was responsible for the 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco. This was documented in several articles in The Wall Street Journal by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. These articles were later used as the basis of a bestselling book, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, and then into a made-for-TV film. As a result, in February 1989, RJR Nabisco paid executive F. Ross Johnson US$53,800,000 as part of a golden handshake clause, the largest such deal in history at the time, as severance compensation for his acceptance of the KKR takeover. He used the money to open his own investment firm, RJM Group, Inc.

In 1998 the company was part of the Master Settlement Agreement.

In October 2002, the European Community accused R. J. Reynolds of selling black market cigarettes to drug traffickers and mobsters from Italy, Russia, Colombia and the Balkans.

On July 30, 2004, R. J. Reynolds merged with the U.S. operations of British American Tobacco (operating under the name of Brown & Williamson). A new parent holding company, Reynolds American Inc., was established as part of the transaction.

In May 2006 former R. J. Reynolds vice-president of sales Stan Smith plead guilty to charges of defrauding the Canadian government of $1,200,000,000 (CDN) through a cigarette smuggling operation. Smith confessed to overseeing the 1990s operation while employed by RJR. Canadian-brand cigarettes were smuggled out of and back into Canada, or smuggled from Puerto Rico, and sold on the black market to avoid taxes. The judge referred to it as biggest fraud case in Canadian history.