Craven A

Craven A (stylized as Craven "A") is a British brand of cigarette, currently manufactured by British American Tobacco under some of its subsidiaries. It was originally created by the Carreras Tobacco Company in 1921 and made by them until its merger into Rothmans International in 1972, who then produced the brand until Rothmans was acquired by British American Tobacco in 1999. The cigarette brand is named after the third Earl of Craven, after the "Craven Mixture", a tobacco blend formulated for the 3rd Earl in the 1860s by tobacconist Don José Joaquin Carreras. History After the end of World War I, the cigarette market resumed its normal competitive spirit with the Carreras Tobacco Company once more well to the fore. Bernhard Baron, a director of Carreras, knew that to compete successfully his product had to be better than his competitors' and in 1921 Carreras launched Craven "A", using the name of the 3rd Earl of Craven. Presumably its name did not refer to the normal meaning of the word 'craven' (cowardly); beyond the historic connection to the "Craven Mixture" tobacco blend, the year of release of the Craven "A" brand coincided with the well-publicised death of the 4th Earl of Craven in a yachting accident on 10 July 1921. It was the first machine-made cork-tipped cigarette, and it became a household name in over 120 countries with the slogan "Will Not Affect Your Throat". Following the success of Craven A, several other companies launched cork-tipped cigarettes which enjoyed varying degrees of success. Few (if any) of these remain available as of 2019.