Cuban cigars
Cigars manufactured in Cuba are widely considered to be without peer, although many experts believe that the best offerings from Honduras and Nicaragua rival those from Cuba. The Cuban reputation is thought to arise from both the unique characteristics of the Vuelta Abajo district in the Pinar del Río Province at the west of the island, where the microclimate allows high-quality tobacco to be grown.Cuban cigars are rolled from tobacco leaves found throughout the country of Cuba. The filler, binder, and wrapper may come from different portions of the island. All cigar production in Cuba is controlled by the Cuban government, and each brand may be rolled in several different factories in Cuba. Cuban cigar rollers are claimed to be the most skilled rollers in the world.The label on Machine-made Cuban cigars -- "Manufactured in Cuba"Habanos SA and Cubatabaco do all the work relating to Cuban cigars, including quality control, promoting and distributing and exportation. Cuban cigars are either hand made, or machine made. All bear the statement Hecho en Cuba, on the box or label, regardless of method of production. Hand-finished cigars previously bunched by machine add Hecho a mano, while fully hand-made cigars say Totalmente a mano in stylized text. Some cigars show a TC or Tripa Corta - meaning short filler and cuttings were used in the hand-rolling process.
www.schwartzbroscigars.com
www.cigar-girls.blogspot.com
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
C.A.O. Italia
Widely heralded as the producer of some of the world's finest wines, olive oils, and truffles, Italy has been largely overlooked as a source for premium cigar tobacco. "Historically, there have been two types of tobacco seeds that thrive in Italy," said CAO Vice President, Tim Ozgener. "The Geudertheimer seed is grown and used primarily for machine made cigars. The seed grown for CAO Italia, however, is an Italian Habano seed originally brought to Italy from Cuba some forty-plus years ago. This seed is grown in the Benevento region of the southern portion of Italy, located between Rome and Naples. We've experimented a great deal with Italian tobacco and we believe it lends a very unique earthy-sweetness to the blend, one that rounds out the robust, full-bodied flavor profile that is CAO Italia."
www.schwartzbroscigars.com
www.cigar-girls.blogspot.com
www.schwartzbroscigars.com
www.cigar-girls.blogspot.com
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Montecristo brand
The Montecristo brand was created in 1935 by Menéndez, García y Cía, then the owners of the popular H. Upmann brand of cigars. Having just purchased the H. Upmann marque from J. Frankau & Co., Menéndez and García decided to produce their own subset of the regular H. Upmann line, called the H. Upmann Montecristo Selection.
The name for the brand was inspired by the Alexandre Dumas, père novel The Count of Monte Cristo, which was supposedly a very popular choice among the torcedores (cigar rollers) in their factory to have read by the lector on the rolling floor.
On the insistence of the John Hunter firm of Great Britain (which would later merge with J. Frankau & Co. to form Hunter & Frankau, Britain's sole importer of Cuban cigars to this day), the name was shortened to simply Montecristo and a new logo was designed for it: the yellow and red "crossed swords" logo the brand still bears today.
Through the efforts of Alfred Dunhill, Ltd., the Montecristo brand became incredibly popular worldwide and to this day accounts for roughly 50% of Habanos SA's worldwide cigar sales, making it the most popular Cuban cigar in the world. After the Cuban Revolution and the nationalization of the cigar industry in Cuba in 1961, Menéndez and García fled to the Canary Islands where they re-established the brand, but were later forced to quit due to copyright disputes with Cubatabaco. In the mid-1970s, the operation was moved to La Romana in the Dominican Republic and released for the US market, where Cuba's rights to the brand weren't recognized due to the embargo. Menéndez, García, y Cía is now owned by Altadis SA, who controls its distribution and marketing in the United States.
The original line had only five numbered sizes, with a tubed cigar added during the 1940s, but otherwise remained unchanged until after nationalization. With Menendez and Garcia gone after 1959, one of the top grade torcedores, José Manuel Gonzalez, was promoted to floor manager and proceeded to breathe new life into the brand. In the 1970s and 1980s, five new sizes were added: the A, the Especial No. 1 and 2, the Joyita, and the Petit Tubo. Three other sizes, the Montecristo No. 6, No. 7, and B, were released but subsequently discontinued, though the B can occasionally be found in very small releases each year in Cuba.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Montecristo continued to rise in popularity among cigar smokers and firmly entrenched itself as one of Cuba's top selling cigar lines. The Montecristo No. 4 is, itself, the most popular cigar in the world market.
In 2004, another new edition to the regular line was made with the Edmundo, a large robusto-sized cigar, named for the hero of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantès.
Montecristo is also regularly chosen to be featured in Habanos SA's annual Edición Limitada selection of cigars with a darker vintage wrapper and there are numerous limited edition releases of special Montecristo cigars for special occasions, anniversaries, the annual Habanos Festival, charities, etc.
Montecristo also produces three machine-made cigarillos: the Mini, the Club, and the Purito.
www.cigar-girls.blogspot.com
www.schwartzbroscigars.com
The name for the brand was inspired by the Alexandre Dumas, père novel The Count of Monte Cristo, which was supposedly a very popular choice among the torcedores (cigar rollers) in their factory to have read by the lector on the rolling floor.
On the insistence of the John Hunter firm of Great Britain (which would later merge with J. Frankau & Co. to form Hunter & Frankau, Britain's sole importer of Cuban cigars to this day), the name was shortened to simply Montecristo and a new logo was designed for it: the yellow and red "crossed swords" logo the brand still bears today.
Through the efforts of Alfred Dunhill, Ltd., the Montecristo brand became incredibly popular worldwide and to this day accounts for roughly 50% of Habanos SA's worldwide cigar sales, making it the most popular Cuban cigar in the world. After the Cuban Revolution and the nationalization of the cigar industry in Cuba in 1961, Menéndez and García fled to the Canary Islands where they re-established the brand, but were later forced to quit due to copyright disputes with Cubatabaco. In the mid-1970s, the operation was moved to La Romana in the Dominican Republic and released for the US market, where Cuba's rights to the brand weren't recognized due to the embargo. Menéndez, García, y Cía is now owned by Altadis SA, who controls its distribution and marketing in the United States.
The original line had only five numbered sizes, with a tubed cigar added during the 1940s, but otherwise remained unchanged until after nationalization. With Menendez and Garcia gone after 1959, one of the top grade torcedores, José Manuel Gonzalez, was promoted to floor manager and proceeded to breathe new life into the brand. In the 1970s and 1980s, five new sizes were added: the A, the Especial No. 1 and 2, the Joyita, and the Petit Tubo. Three other sizes, the Montecristo No. 6, No. 7, and B, were released but subsequently discontinued, though the B can occasionally be found in very small releases each year in Cuba.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Montecristo continued to rise in popularity among cigar smokers and firmly entrenched itself as one of Cuba's top selling cigar lines. The Montecristo No. 4 is, itself, the most popular cigar in the world market.
In 2004, another new edition to the regular line was made with the Edmundo, a large robusto-sized cigar, named for the hero of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantès.
Montecristo is also regularly chosen to be featured in Habanos SA's annual Edición Limitada selection of cigars with a darker vintage wrapper and there are numerous limited edition releases of special Montecristo cigars for special occasions, anniversaries, the annual Habanos Festival, charities, etc.
Montecristo also produces three machine-made cigarillos: the Mini, the Club, and the Purito.
www.cigar-girls.blogspot.com
www.schwartzbroscigars.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)