Montecristo

About

Montecristo Cigars There are very few lines as popular with smokers as Montecristo cigars. Around 25% of all Cuban cigar sales every year are accounted for by this brand; the Montecristo No. 4 is the best-selling Cuban cigar in the world. In every shop on the planet where Habanos are sold Montecristo will have some extent of availability; 26 continuous production cigars across three distinct imprints (each with a different strength profile) all sell enough to warrant their place in the catalogue. The simple brown bands with the fleur-de-lis in the centre have become truly iconic, in a world which severely overuses that term, and the cigar universe simply would not be the same without Montecristo. The origin of the name is also engrained into cigar culture. The lectors – people employed to read to the torcedores as they work – of the Havana factories are almost as famous as the cigars themselves. Like Romeo y Julieta , Montecristo was named for a famous piece of literature which became a favourite of the workers in short order. The Count of Montecristo, Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 tale of vengeance, resonated so deeply with those on the factory floor in 1935 – the year the brand was born – that they chose the name to be put on their handiwork. Shortly after being founded, the brand had generated enough income for its founders to purchase the H. Upmann factory and move production there. The efforts of the brand’s distributors in the UK and US saw the popularity and sales skyrocket, and Montecristo were soon one of the biggest brands in the world. The vendors who sold them the H. Upmann factory – J Frankau SA – and the distributors of Montecristo in the UK – John Hunter Morris – eventually merged to form Hunters & Frankau, giving Montecristo an extra connection to the valuable UK market. The numbered cigars – Montecristo 1 through 5 – have been in production since the outset, having been the first five cigars produced at the brand’s inception, and show no signs of their