CUBA, CIGARS, AND THE 20TH CENTURY
In 1898, when the Spanish-American War brought Cuba under United States control, American firms began to dominate island industries, including the Cuban cigar industry. The explosion of entrepreneurship in the Cuban cigar industry just after the turn of the century led to the issuance of the Cuban Warranty Seal in 1912 to try to bring some sanity to the proliferation of brands, styles and sizes. Cuban exports remained strong through World War I, but declined considerably afterward.(The record for this period came in 1906, when 257,776,000 Havanas were exported. The biggest drop came in 1921, when thanks to new tariffs, exports dropped almost 61% to just 59,440,000!) In the 1920s, the introduction of the cigar-making machine in the Por Larrañaga factory led to a crisis in the industry, as rollers saw their jobs threatened. A boycott of the machine-made products led to the removal of the machines in 1937 until 1950, but American companies interested in this technology and in traditional, hand-rolled cigars began importing large amounts of Cuban leaf into the U.S. for production there instead of in Havana. These cigars, made of all-Cuban tobacco, were known as "Clear Havanas."
In Cuba, even harder times were ahead as German submarine attacks in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II made Havanas almost unavailable in Europe, their principal market. But after the war, the popularity of Cuban cigars was reinvigorated by the image of the cigar-loving British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and by machine-made cigars, which satisfied the European desire for inexpensive smokes from Havana.(A noteworthy surge in sales occurred in 1944, when 181,313,000 Havanas were exported, the most since 1910!) With its markets restored, the Cuban cigar industry moved ahead until 1959, when the Cuban Revolution changed the political situation and the tobacco industry was nationalized.

www.cigar-girls.blogspot.com
www.schwartzbroscigars.com

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

Edge by Rocky Patel

The Edge by Rocky Patel is waiting, so get your favorite smoking chair ready. Comprised of a dazzling array of superior, aged premium tobaccos including ample Ligero, Edge allows one to realize the combined blending and cigar-making skills of Rocky Patel and Nestor Plasencia. The Edge is no doubt one of the stronger cigars on the market: that's why the ads say 'for professional smokers only.' However, the power is controlled, the strength extraordinarly well-balanced, the flavor extremely smooth - a feat for any blender crafting such a full-tilt blend. The mature, crisp flavors coalesce at just the right moment, allowing you to gradually appreciate the complexity and strength of the cigar, as opposed to being simply overpowered by a potent blow to the palate. In the end, you're left with a full-flavored blast of spicy, well rounded accents that will fully entertain the most veteran of palates.

www.schwartzbroscigars.com
www.cigar-girls.blogspot.com