Montecristo cigars

The story goes that torcedores — the skilled cigar rollers of Havana — would have a lector read aloud to them while they worked, and Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo was among the most requested books on the factory floor. When Alonso Menéndez purchased the Particulares factory in July 1935 and created a new brand, the name was already in the air. Within two decades, Montecristo had become the most recognized Cuban cigar on the planet.

After the 1959 revolution, Castro's government nationalized the Cuban tobacco industry on September 15, 1960, absorbing the Montecristo brand into what became Cubatabaco and later Habanos S.A. Menéndez and his partners emigrated and attempted to rebuild the brand elsewhere, but trademark disputes eventually forced them to abandon those efforts, leaving the name firmly in Cuban hands.

The Cuban portfolio is anchored by two benchmarks: the No. 4, a Mareva that serves as the entry point for countless smokers beginning their Habanos journey, and the No. 2, a torpedo widely considered one of the finest cigars produced anywhere. Both are medium in body, cedar-forward, and extraordinarily consistent. The Edmundo (a robusto-plus introduced in 2002) and the Open series (a lighter, faster-smoking line) round out the regular production range.

In the US, Altadis — a subsidiary of Imperial Brands — produces a separate Montecristo line in La Romana, Dominican Republic. The two share no tobacco and operate under entirely different blending philosophies, a direct consequence of the 1960 embargo. Montecristo accounts for roughly a quarter of Habanos S.A.'s global cigar sales, a number that speaks for itself.