Publisher
This site, bascoyvargas.com, is published and operated by Sterling Advisory Limited, a limited company incorporated in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Business Registration No. 79950406, whose registered office is at Unit 2A, 17/F, Glenealy Tower, No. 1 Glenealy, Central, Hong Kong S.A.R. Director of publication: Vienna Yuen, director of Sterling Advisory Limited.
Email: hello@bascoyvargas.com. Customer service by telephone and WhatsApp: +44 7476 519225. Legal matters: legal@bascoyvargas.com. Personal data: privacy@bascoyvargas.com.
The brand
Basco y Vargas is a house of Manila cigars. The name Basco y Vargas is a trademark owned by Clément Reisky; the seal, the band, the wordmark and the monogram are original works owned by him. All are used by Sterling Advisory Limited under exclusive licence. The word mark BASCO Y VARGAS is the subject of a trademark with the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, application number 42026526872, in class 34 (cigars, cigarillos, tobacco, humidors, cigar cases, cutters and holders, ashtrays and smokers' articles). The cigars are made in the Philippines.
Hosting and technical services
The site is hosted by Vercel Inc., 440 N Barranca Ave #4133, Covina, CA 91723, United States. Content is managed with Sanity (Sanity AS, Oslo, Norway). Films are streamed by Mux Inc. (San Francisco, United States). The map on the Find page is served by Mapbox Inc. (United States). Emails are sent through Resend Inc. (San Francisco, United States). Audience measurement uses Plausible Insights OÜ (Tallinn, Estonia), which sets no cookie.
Adults only, no online sale
This site presents tobacco products. It is intended exclusively for adults of legal smoking age in their country of residence, and the age confirmation at the entrance is a condition of access. Nothing is sold on this site: there is no shop, no basket and no payment. The cigars are available from the independent boutiques and lounges listed on the Find page, each trading under its own licence and the law of its own country. Professional enquiries go through the Partners page and are governed by partner terms sent separately.
Intellectual property
Texts, photographs, films, drawings, the map illustrations, the seal and every graphic element of this site belong to Sterling Advisory Limited or to Clément Reisky, or are used under licence. They may not be reproduced, adapted or distributed without written permission, beyond private viewing and short quotations with attribution. Archive images are credited where they appear. The photograph of the 1770 8 reales coin is by Mike Peel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. The photograph of the molave chest is by EyeTrick, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Map: © Mapbox, © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Historical statements
The historical dates on this site (1580, 1734, 1782, 1847, 1881 and others) refer to the history of the Manila cigar, of the Spanish tobacco monopoly in the Philippines and of the documents we reproduce. They do not refer to the publisher. Sterling Advisory Limited is a recently incorporated Hong Kong company and Basco y Vargas is a new house. No royal warrant, appointment or succession is claimed or implied. The name honours José Basco y Vargas, governor of the Philippines from 1778 to 1787; no family link with him is claimed.
Liability
The information on this site is given in good faith and kept up to date. Venue details, opening hours and availability are supplied by the partners themselves and may change without notice. Recommended retail prices, where shown, are indicative and set for the selected market; the price paid is the price displayed by the boutique. Links to third-party sites are provided for convenience and do not imply endorsement. We are not responsible for their content or for their handling of your data.
Applicable law
This site and these notices are governed by the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Any dispute that cannot be settled amicably falls under the jurisdiction of the courts of Hong Kong, without prejudice to the mandatory protections you enjoy as a consumer under the law of your country of residence.
Last updated: [date of publication]
Scope
These terms govern the use of bascoyvargas.com and of the partner portal, both operated by Sterling Advisory Limited (“we”). By using the site you accept them. If you do not, please do not use the site.
Age
The site is reserved for adults of legal smoking age in their country of residence. You confirm this at the entrance, and a cookie remembers your answer for thirty days. We may restrict access, or decline to answer a message, when we have reason to believe this condition is not met. We do not ask for or store a date of birth.
No sale on the site
No order can be placed here and no payment is taken. The Find page lists independent boutiques and lounges; your purchase is made with them, under their own terms and the law of their country. Recommended retail prices, where shown, are indicative for the selected market, taxes included. Lounge prices are set by each venue.
Use of the site
You may browse the site for your personal information. You may not copy it in whole or in part for commercial use, frame it, scrape it, probe or disrupt its operation, bypass the age confirmation, or use the forms to send unsolicited or misleading messages. The forms are protected against automated submissions.
Partner portal
The portal is reserved for professionals we have approved. Access codes are personal and confidential; you are responsible for what is done under them and must tell us at once if they are compromised. Price lists, terms, photographs and films made available in the portal are confidential, for the partner's own use in selling Basco y Vargas cigars, and may be used only within the brand guidelines and the partner agreement. We may suspend or close an account when these rules are not respected or when the partnership ends.
Newsletter
The letters from Manila are sent only to adults who have asked for them and confirmed their address (double opt-in). Every letter carries an unsubscribe link. No offer is made in them and no reply is expected.
Intellectual property
The rights over the content of the site are described in the Legal notice. Nothing in these terms grants you a licence over the trademarks, the photographs or the films.
Availability and changes
We may modify, suspend or withdraw all or part of the site at any time, and update these terms. The version in force is the one published here, with its date. Continued use of the site after an update means you accept the new version.
Liability
The site is provided as it stands. We take care over its accuracy, but we do not guarantee that it is free of errors or interruptions. To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from the use of the site or of the third-party sites it links to. Nothing here limits a liability that cannot be limited under the applicable law.
Law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of Hong Kong S.A.R., and any dispute is subject to the jurisdiction of the Hong Kong courts, without prejudice to the mandatory protections of your country of residence. If a clause is held invalid, the others remain in force.
Last updated: [date of publication]
Who we are
Sterling Advisory Limited, Unit 2A, 17/F, Glenealy Tower, No. 1 Glenealy, Central, Hong Kong S.A.R., is responsible for the personal data collected through this site and the partner portal: the data user under the Hong Kong Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, the controller under the GDPR. Questions and requests: privacy@bascoyvargas.com, or by post to the address above.
What we collect, why, and for how long
| Age confirmation | No personal data. A cookie records that you confirmed your age, for thirty days. We never ask for a date of birth. |
|---|---|
| Contact form | Name, email, subject and message, to answer you. Kept for 24 months after our last exchange, then deleted. |
| Partner enquiry | Company, name, email, phone, country, type of business, licence status, volumes, brands carried and message, to assess the enquiry and prepare partner terms. Kept for 24 months after the last exchange, or, once a partnership exists, for its duration plus seven years for contractual and accounting records, as Hong Kong law requires. |
| Notify me | Email and city, to send one message when we open there. Deleted after that message, or after 24 months. |
| Letters from Manila | Email, with the date and proof of your double opt-in, to send the newsletter. Kept until you unsubscribe, then deleted within a month. |
| Partner portal | Login email, name, company, role, connection logs and documents downloaded, to operate the portal and keep it secure. Kept for the duration of the partnership plus twelve months; logs for twelve months. |
| WhatsApp and phone | Your number and the content of our exchanges, to answer you. Kept for 24 months after the last exchange. WhatsApp itself is operated by Meta Platforms under its own privacy policy. |
| Technical logs | IP address, browser type, pages requested and time, collected by our host to keep the site secure and running. Kept for thirty days. |
| Films and map | When you play a film or open the map, your IP address reaches Mux or Mapbox to deliver the content, and the player measures playback quality without identifying you. |
| Audience | Plausible counts visits without cookies and without storing IP addresses or any personal data. We see totals, never individuals. |
On what basis
Where the GDPR or a similar law applies, we rely on your consent for the letters from Manila and the notify-me message, on the steps taken at your request before a contract for partner enquiries and the portal, on our legitimate interest in running a secure site for technical logs and audience totals, and on legal obligations for age restriction, tobacco rules and accounting records. You may withdraw a consent at any time; it does not affect what was done before.
Who receives your data
Our team, and only the people who need it. Providers acting on our instructions: Sanity (content and enquiries), Resend (email), Vercel (hosting and logs), Mux (films), Mapbox (map), Plausible (audience), and the tools we use for accounting and signatures where a partner agreement is signed. Partners of the house, only when you ask us to put you in touch with one of them. Authorities, when the law requires it. We do not sell personal data, we do not share it with advertising networks, and we do not profile anyone.
Transfers
Your data is processed in Hong Kong and by providers in the European Union and the United States. For data protected by the GDPR, transfers outside the European Economic Area rest on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, or on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework for certified providers. A copy of the safeguards is available on request.
Your rights
Under the Hong Kong Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance you may ask for access to your personal data and for its correction, and you may at any time ask us to stop using it for direct marketing. We answer within forty days; a reasonable fee may be charged for an access request.
If you are in the European Union or in another territory with similar rules, you also have the right to erasure, to restriction, to portability, to object to processing based on our legitimate interest, and to withdraw a consent. You may lodge a complaint with your supervisory authority, for instance the CNIL in France. If you are in the United Arab Emirates, the Personal Data Protection Law gives you comparable rights, and complaints may be addressed to the UAE Data Office.
To exercise a right, write to privacy@bascoyvargas.com. We may ask you to confirm your identity. We answer within one month, or within forty days where Hong Kong law applies.
Direct marketing
The only marketing we do is the newsletter, sent to people who asked for it twice. Every letter carries an unsubscribe link, and a request to privacy@bascoyvargas.com works just as well. We never pass your details to a third party for its own marketing.
Minors
This site is for adults only. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under the legal smoking age, and we delete it as soon as we become aware of it.
Security
The site is served over HTTPS. Access to personal data is limited to the people who need it and protected by individual accounts. Our providers are bound by contract to protect the data they process for us. Should a breach affect you, we will inform you and the competent authority as the law requires.
Changes
We update this policy when our practices change, and the date below tells you when.
Last updated: [date of publication]
Three technical cookies, no tracking
| byv_age | Remembers that you confirmed your age. 30 days. |
|---|---|
| byv_market | Remembers the market you selected, to show the right prices and health notice. 12 months. |
| byv_session | Keeps you signed in to the partner portal. Deleted when you sign out, or after 30 days. |
These cookies are necessary for the site to work as you asked, so no consent is required and there is no banner. Audience measurement uses Plausible, which sets no cookie and stores no personal data.
The film player (Mux) and the map (Mapbox) may keep a technical value in your browser to improve playback and map loading. Neither is used to follow you across other sites. Links to Instagram and YouTube open those services, which apply their own cookies once you are there.
You can delete or block cookies in your browser settings. Without the age cookie, you will be asked to confirm your age again at each visit.
Health notice by market
| Default (EN) | Smoking causes serious diseases and is addictive. This site is intended for adults only. |
|---|---|
| France (FR) | Fumer tue. Fumer nuit gravement à votre santé et à celle de votre entourage. Site réservé aux adultes. |
| United Arab Emirates (GCC) | Text per GCC Standardization Organization requirements, in Arabic and English, to be inserted from the CMS (market.healthNotice). |
| Hong Kong | Text per Hong Kong Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance, to be inserted. |
No health claim, no claim of mildness as a benefit, no imagery of sport, celebration or youth appears on this site. Nobody who appears looks under 25.