Why Montecristo Is the Best-Selling Cigar Brand in The World

1. Why Montecristo Is the Best- Selling Cigar Brand in The World Cigars, for most, are more a lifestyle than a mere habit! That’s the reason people consider many variables when selecting a cigar. Be it the flavor; the vitola, or the brand, cigar smokers weigh these variables when selecting what to smoke! Montecristo cigars happen to be the most famous premium brand cigars that many, novice and seasoned smokers alike, gravitate toward. The brand exemplifies everything that a cigar smoker seeks - complex flavor; renowned torpedo shape, and the most celebrated marquee brand.’

2. History of Montecristo Cigars The premium cigar brand is produced in Cuba and La Romana, the Dominican Republic. The Montecristo brand as many may know came about after the publication of the novel “The Count of Montecristo,” written by Alexandre Dumas. Cigar smokers in the US due to the embargo have come to love smoking the Dominican Montecristo cigar while people from rest of the world are intimately familiar with the Cuban made Montecristo cigar, particularly the No. 2. The Montecristo cigar brand came into being in 1935, though it was originally established during the 1930s under a different name, Paticulares, and the lessor known Byron. It was Alonso Menendez who purchased the cigar factory and renamed it Montecristo, having been inspired by Dumas’ work as it was very popular among the torcedores or cigar rollers in the factory to be read by the lector on the rolling floor. The brands now famous logo, consisting of a triangle of six swords surrounding a fleur-de-lis, was designed by John Hunter Morris and Elken Co. Ltd., the Cuban brands British distributor. Due themarketing and promotion efforts of Alfred Dunhill the company, the Montecristo brand grew incredibly popular the world over and now accounts for roughly one- quarter of Habano SA’s worldwide cigar sales. Montecristo cigars, found in Texas, California, New York and elsewhere throughout the United States have come to symbolize high-end cigars. The tobacco used in the Cuban cigar is grown in the very fertile Vuelta Abajo region and this is what sets the cigar brand apart from others as it is also the region responsible for the famous Cohiba brand.

3. The dual origins of the Montecristo cigar brand are due to the Castro regime and the subsequent embargo, which drove Menendez to leave Cuban in 1961 and establish the brand in the Canary Islands from where the Montecristo cigar could be legally sold in the U.S. However, shortly thereafter he faced trademark challenges which compelled him to move to another city, La Romana in the Dominican Republic. Founding the new firm in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s, Menendez and his partner Garcia, under the name Menendez, Garcia, y Cia, began growing and selling cigars under the Montecristo name in the United States, later selling the company to Altadis S.A. which now controls the distribution and marketing of Montecristo cigars in the United States. Montecristo cigars produced in the Dominican Republic are now regarded as highly as the original Cubans.