History

A bit of History
Tobacco probably first cultivated by native Americans of Yucatan peninsula what is now Mexico, the plant was later grown in both North and South America. We do not know when it was first grown, or smoked, but we can be pretty certain that the inhabitants of Europe were unaware of tobacco until after Columbus s epic voyage of 1492. Two of his sailors reported that the Cuban Indians smoked a primitive form of cigar, with twisted, dried tobacco leaves rolled in other leaves such as palm or plantain. In due course, Spanish and other European sailors caught the habit, as did the Conquistadors, and smoking spread to Spain and Portugal and eventually France, most probably through Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal, who gave his name to nicotine. Later, the habit spread to Italy and, after Sir Walter Raleigh's voyages to America, to Britain. Smoking was familiar throughout Europe - in pipes in Britain - by the mid-16th century and, half a century later, tobacco started to be grown commercially in America. Tobacco was originally thought to have medicinal qualities, but there were already some who considered it evil and it was denounced by Philip II of Spain, and James I of England. The word cigar originated from sikar, the Mayan-Indian word for smoking, which became cigarro in Spanish, although the word itself, and variations on it, did not come into general use until the mid-18th century. Cigars, more or less in the form that we know them today, were first made in Spain in the early 18th century, using Cuban tobacco. At that time, no cigars were exported from Cuba. By 1790, cigar manufacture had spread north of the Pyrenees, with small factories being set up in France and Germany. The Dutch, too, started making cigars using tobacco from their Far Eastern colonies. But cigar smoking only became a widespread custom in France and Britain after the Peninsular War (1808-14), when returning British and French veterans made fashionable the habit they had learned while serving in Spain. Production of "segars" began in Britain in 1820, and in 1821 an Act of Parliament was needed to set out regulations governing their production. Because of an import tax, foreign cigars in Britain were already regarded as a luxury item. Soon there was a demand for higher quality cigars in Europe, and Spanish cigars were superseded by those made in Cuba, which was then a Spanish colony, where cigar production had started during the mid-18th century. Cigars, European smokers discovered, traveled better than tobacco. The cigar probably arrived in North America in 1762, when Israel Putnam, later an American general in the American War of Independence (1774-1778), returned from Cuba, where he had served in the British army. He came back to his home in Connecticut, where tobacco had been grown by settlers since the 17th century, with a selection of Havana cigars and large amounts of Cuban tobacco seed. Cigar factories were later set up in the Connecticut area, processing the tobacco grown from the Cuban seed. In the early 19th century American domestic production started to take off and Cuban cigars also began to be imported in significant numbers. But cigar smoking did not really boom in the United States until around the time of the Civil War in the 1860s, with individual brands emerging by the late 19th century. By then the cigar had become a status symbol in the United States. During the same period, cigar smoking had become so popular among gentlemen in Britain and France that European trains introduced smoking cars to accommodate them, and hotels and clubs boasted smoking rooms. The after-dinner cigar, accompanied by glasses of port or brandy, also became a tradition. This ritual was given an added boost by the fact that the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII and a leader of fashion, was a devotee, much to the annoyance of his mother, Queen Victoria, who disliked smoking. Cigarettes, or paper cigars, first appeared on the scene in the early 19th century as a cheap alternative to cigars. The introduction of cigarette-making machines, in the 1880s, accelerated the growth in popularity of this form of smoking, which had become dominant by World War I. As a response, the production of machine-made cigars began in Cuba in the 1920s, after which both the manufacture and smoking of handmade cigars fell into a slow but steady decline. Smoking in general has, of course, become much less popular since the publication of the American Surgeon General's report on its effects on health in the early 1960s. But since the early 1990s, there has been a major revival in the popularity of handmade cigars: they have become chic once more, thanks to the enthusiasm shown for them by stars, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Woods, Jack Nicholson, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore and model Linda Evangelista, demonstrating that, among the rich and famous, cigars are just as popular as ever.
History of Cuban Cigars
1492 Christopher Columbus discovers the new world. Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres disembark in Cuba. Upon their return they note, 'These envoys met a great number of Indians, both men and women, who were holding a small piece of smouldering tinder with which to light certain herbs with which they perfume themselves, following their custom'. 1493 Upon returning to Europe, the Spanish envoy, Luis de Torres, having lit up these peculiar tobacco leaves acquired from the New World, was arrested and condemned to 10 years imprisonment for sorcery. 1519 Cortez arrives in Mexico and is confronted be the Aztecs who are also tobacco smokers but these enjoyed their leaves in pipes. 1520 Tobacco is circulating through the Spanish ports of Seville, Cadiz, Cartagena and Moguer and the Portuguese port of Lisbon. 1525 The first documented praise of tobacco written by, Jean d'Ango, a famous shipbuilder read, 'Yesterday I met an old sailor and I drank a jug of Brittany wine with him. While drinking he suddenly pilled out of his wallet a while clay object which at first I thought was a schoolboy's inkhorn. You would have said it was an inkhorn with a long pipe and a small mouth; he filled the wide end with brown leaves which he had crushed in the palm of his hands, set fire to it by means of a tinderbox, and the very next moment, having put the pipe between his lips, he was blowing smoke out of his mouth, which I found quite astounding. He apprised me that the Portuguese had taught him this trick, which they had learned from the Mexican Indians. He called it 'smoking' and said that this smoking sharpened the mind and produced happy thoughts.' 1530 Tobacco served as the first currency of trade for African coastal slaves. 1542 Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Dominican writer wrote in his, Breve Relación dela Destrucción de las Indias (A Very Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies) a most accurate description of the tobacco, "They were dried herbs rolled up in a certain led, also dried, forming a kind of paper 'fusee' like children make for the feast of Pentecost. People lit them at one end, sucked the other, and absorbed the smoke by breathing it in. This smoke...prevented them, they claimed, from feeling sleepy. These 'fusees,' or whatever we may call them, they themselves called 'tobaccos.'" 1556 The first tobacco seeds were planted in Angoulême, France by André Thevet, a Cordelier monk. 1560 Jean Nicot discovers the mysterious healing properties of tobacco leaves and cures the Queen, by administering tobacco in the form of snuff, of her severe migraines. 1567 Jean Liébault, the son of a famous printer, in publishing, Agriculture and the Rustic House, he officially refers to the tobacco plant as Nicotiana, a clear homage to Jean Nicot who first acquired and studied the plant from the royal gardens in Portugal. 1580 The English bring tobacco to Russia and the Italians bring the plant to Turkey. 1590 Tobacco reaches Japan through the Portuguese navigators. 1595 The Indian Mogul Empire is presented with the tobacco plant as is Morocco, Persia, Egypt and the Philippines. 1610 Sir Francis Bacon writes that tobacco use is increasing and that it is a custom hard to quit. 1612 John Rolfe, the famous husband of Indian princess Pocahontas, introduces tobacco into Virginia. 1623 Following a decree by British King Philip III, the island of Cuba becomes the dispatch hub for tobacco to the entire Spanish Empire to include, Costa Rica, Mexico and the Canary Islands. 1717 Madrid builds Cuba's first tobacco factory for exports to Seville. 1729-1796 Catherine The Great was an avid cigar smoker. To avoid soiling her fingers with tobacco stains, she is credited as being the first to put a band around a cigar. 1748-1753 Cuba exports an average of 800 tons of tobacco to Spain. 1779 Pope Pius the VI grants a German tobacco manufacturer the first permit to produce and market 'tobacco sticks' (bastoni di tabacco). 1788 Cigar production and distribution begins in Germany. Cigars are seen as the ultimate sign of well-being and bourgeoisie. 1810 The United States joins the cigar trade rolling one foot long 'stogies' in Pennsylvania. 1816 France joins the cigar trade, then Austria, who names their cigars, 'Virginians' in to the United States. 1827 Don Jaime Partagás founds his tobacco firm which still remains in the city of Havana. 1834 Por Larañaga emerges as a Cuban cigar brand. 1837 Ramón Allones emerges as a brand in Cuba while overall tobacco production reaches 6,000 tons. 1840 Manuel López of Cuba registers Punch as a trademark, to facilitate his entry into the British market. The Cuban name for a puro or cigar adopts the name of Cuba's capital Havana. 1844 H. Upmann and Partagás register their trademarks. 1848 El Rey del Mundo and Sancho Panza are established as trademarks by the German wholesaler, Emilio Ohmstedt. 1850 Romeo y Julieta is created by Inocenci Alvarez and Manin Garcia. 1851 The Catalán José Gener founds Hoyo de Monterrey. Cigar bands are first introduced and tobacco houses are soon commissioned by famous politicians, artists and society figures. 1920s Bonnie and Clyde smoke Cuban cigars as they wreak havoc across the Southwest during the Depression. 1935 Montecristo, the most popular brand in the world, is created. 1959 Castro's insurgents enter Havana, nationalize the tobacco industry and place it under the powerful auspices of state owned, Cubatabaco. 1963 Cohiba, a term used by the Taíno Indians to describe cigars and tobacco, is launched as Fidel's choice cigar and reserved, at first, only for friends of the Revolution. 1992 The Línea 1492 is launched to commemorate the 5 centuries since tobacco was discovered in Cuba, by Christopher Columbus. 1992 The largest female smoking club, The George Sand Society, is founded in Santa Monica, CA. George Sand (1804-187O) the famous French writer, was known to stride about Paris in men's trousers, trench coats and neckties, smoking Cuban cigars - sometimes as many as 7 a day! 2000 The 1st Series of Edición Limitada is released and includes, Romeo y Julieta Exhibición No.2 Double Corona, Partagás Piramides and Montecristo Robustos. These cigars are marked by their oily, dark or maduro wrappers, and excellent construction. An additional band is added to these cigars which notes the date of the Edición Series. 2001 The 2nd Series of Edición Limitadas. These include Hoyo Particulares, Partagas Série D No. 3, Cohiba Píramides, Montecristo Double Corona and the Romeo y Julieta Robusto. 2002 Cohiba releases the X Anniversary Línea 1492 commemorative humidor to celebrate 10 years since the release of the Humidor.. 500 cases are produced and each contain the 1492 selection: Siglo I, II, III, IV, V with the special addition of the new Siglo VI. 2003 Siglo VI is released individually, in limited quantities, as an official member of the Cohiba collection. Known as a Cañonazo this exclusive cigar measures 150mm and has a ring gauge of 52. The 3rd Series of Edición Limitadas is released and includes, Romeo y Julieta Hermosos No. 1, Partagas Série D No. 2, Hoyo de Monterrey Pirámides, Montecristo 'C' and Cohiba Double Coronas. 2004 Edmundo, the main character from the novel, The Count of Montecristo, is released onto the market as Montecristo's newest release in 30 years. Designed in a heavy ring gauge of 52 and a suitable length of 135mm or 5.3in The 4th Series of Edición Limitadas is released and includes, Romeo y Julieta Hermosos No. 2 and Partagas Série D No. 1

A bit of History

Tobacco probably first cultivated by native Americans of Yucatan peninsula what is now Mexico, the plant was later grown in both North and South America.
We do not know when it was first grown, or smoked, but we can be pretty certain that the inhabitants of Europe were unaware of tobacco until after Columbus s epic voyage of 1492.

Two of his sailors reported that the Cuban Indians smoked a primitive form of cigar, with twisted, dried tobacco leaves rolled in other leaves such as palm or plantain. In due course, Spanish and other European sailors caught the habit, as did the Conquistadors, and smoking spread to Spain and Portugal and eventually France, most probably through Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal, who gave his name to nicotine. Later, the habit spread to Italy and, after Sir Walter Raleigh's voyages to America, to Britain.

Smoking was familiar throughout Europe - in pipes in Britain - by the mid-16th century and, half a century later, tobacco started to be grown commercially in America. Tobacco was originally thought to have medicinal qualities, but there were already some who considered it evil and it was denounced by Philip II of Spain, and James I of England. The word cigar originated from sikar, the Mayan-Indian word for smoking, which became cigarro in Spanish, although the word itself, and variations on it, did not come into general use until the mid-18th century.

Cigars, more or less in the form that we know them today, were first made in Spain in the early 18th century, using Cuban tobacco. At that time, no cigars were exported from Cuba.

By 1790, cigar manufacture had spread north of the Pyrenees, with small factories being set up in France and Germany.

The Dutch, too, started making cigars using tobacco from their Far Eastern colonies. But cigar smoking only became a widespread custom in France and Britain after the Peninsular War (1808-14), when returning British and French veterans made fashionable the habit they had learned while serving in Spain.

Production of "segars" began in Britain in 1820, and in 1821 an Act of Parliament was needed to set out regulations governing their production. Because of an import tax, foreign cigars in Britain were already regarded as a luxury item.

Soon there was a demand for higher quality cigars in Europe, and Spanish cigars were superseded by those made in Cuba, which was then a Spanish colony, where cigar production had started during the mid-18th century. Cigars, European smokers discovered, traveled better than tobacco. The cigar probably arrived in North America in 1762, when Israel Putnam, later an American general in the American War of Independence (1774-1778), returned from Cuba, where he had served in the British army. He came back to his home in Connecticut, where tobacco had been grown by settlers since the 17th century, with a selection of Havana cigars and large amounts of Cuban tobacco seed. Cigar factories were later set up in the Connecticut area, processing the tobacco grown from the Cuban seed. In the early 19th century American domestic production started to take off and Cuban cigars also began to be imported in significant numbers. But cigar smoking did not really boom in the United States until around the time of the Civil War in the 1860s, with individual brands emerging by the late 19th century. By then the cigar had become a status symbol in the United States.

During the same period, cigar smoking had become so popular among gentlemen in Britain and France that European trains introduced smoking cars to accommodate them, and hotels and clubs boasted smoking rooms. The after-dinner cigar, accompanied by glasses of port or brandy, also became a tradition. This ritual was given an added boost by the fact that the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII and a leader of fashion, was a devotee, much to the annoyance of his mother, Queen Victoria, who disliked smoking.

Cigarettes, or paper cigars, first appeared on the scene in the early 19th century as a cheap alternative to cigars. The introduction of cigarette-making machines, in the 1880s, accelerated the growth in popularity of this form of smoking, which had become dominant by World War I.

As a response, the production of machine-made cigars began in Cuba in the 1920s, after which both the manufacture and smoking of handmade cigars fell into a slow but steady decline.

Smoking in general has, of course, become much less popular since the publication of the American Surgeon General's report on its effects on health in the early 1960s. But since the early 1990s, there has been a major revival in the popularity of handmade cigars: they have become chic once more, thanks to the enthusiasm shown for them by stars, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Woods, Jack Nicholson, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore and model Linda Evangelista, demonstrating that, among the rich and famous, cigars are just as popular as ever.

History of Cuban Cigars

1492
Christopher Columbus discovers the new world. Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres disembark in Cuba. Upon their return they note, 'These envoys met a great number of Indians, both men and women, who were holding a small piece of smouldering tinder with which to light certain herbs with which they perfume themselves, following their custom'.

1493
Upon returning to Europe, the Spanish envoy, Luis de Torres, having lit up these peculiar tobacco leaves acquired from the New World, was arrested and condemned to 10 years imprisonment for sorcery.

1519
Cortez arrives in Mexico and is confronted be the Aztecs who are also tobacco smokers but these enjoyed their leaves in pipes.

1520
Tobacco is circulating through the Spanish ports of Seville, Cadiz, Cartagena and Moguer and the Portuguese port of Lisbon.

1525
The first documented praise of tobacco written by, Jean d'Ango, a famous shipbuilder read, 'Yesterday I met an old sailor and I drank a jug of Brittany wine with him. While drinking he suddenly pilled out of his wallet a while clay object which at first I thought was a schoolboy's inkhorn. You would have said it was an inkhorn with a long pipe and a small mouth; he filled the wide end with brown leaves which he had crushed in the palm of his hands, set fire to it by means of a tinderbox, and the very next moment, having put the pipe between his lips, he was blowing smoke out of his mouth, which I found quite astounding. He apprised me that the Portuguese had taught him this trick, which they had learned from the Mexican Indians. He called it 'smoking' and said that this smoking sharpened the mind and produced happy thoughts.'

1530
Tobacco served as the first currency of trade for African coastal slaves.

1542
Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Dominican writer wrote in his, Breve Relación dela Destrucción de las Indias (A Very Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies) a most accurate description of the tobacco, "They were dried herbs rolled up in a certain led, also dried, forming a kind of paper 'fusee' like children make for the feast of Pentecost. People lit them at one end, sucked the other, and absorbed the smoke by breathing it in. This smoke...prevented them, they claimed, from feeling sleepy. These 'fusees,' or whatever we may call them, they themselves called 'tobaccos.'"

1556
The first tobacco seeds were planted in Angoulême, France by André Thevet, a Cordelier monk.

1560
Jean Nicot discovers the mysterious healing properties of tobacco leaves and cures the Queen, by administering tobacco in the form of snuff, of her severe migraines.

1567
Jean Liébault, the son of a famous printer, in publishing, Agriculture and the Rustic House, he officially refers to the tobacco plant as Nicotiana, a clear homage to Jean Nicot who first acquired and studied the plant from the royal gardens in Portugal.

1580
The English bring tobacco to Russia and the Italians bring the plant to Turkey.

1590
Tobacco reaches Japan through the Portuguese navigators.

1595
The Indian Mogul Empire is presented with the tobacco plant as is Morocco, Persia, Egypt and the Philippines.

1610
Sir Francis Bacon writes that tobacco use is increasing and that it is a custom hard to quit.

1612
John Rolfe, the famous husband of Indian princess Pocahontas, introduces tobacco into Virginia.

1623
Following a decree by British King Philip III, the island of Cuba becomes the dispatch hub for tobacco to the entire Spanish Empire to include, Costa Rica, Mexico and the Canary Islands.

1717
Madrid builds Cuba's first tobacco factory for exports to Seville.

1729-1796
Catherine The Great was an avid cigar smoker. To avoid soiling her fingers with tobacco stains, she is credited as being the first to put a band around a cigar.

1748-1753
Cuba exports an average of 800 tons of tobacco to Spain.

1779
Pope Pius the VI grants a German tobacco manufacturer the first permit to produce and market 'tobacco sticks' (bastoni di tabacco).

1788
Cigar production and distribution begins in Germany. Cigars are seen as the ultimate sign of well-being and bourgeoisie.

1810
The United States joins the cigar trade rolling one foot long 'stogies' in Pennsylvania.

1816
France joins the cigar trade, then Austria, who names their cigars, 'Virginians' in to the United States.

1827
Don Jaime Partagás founds his tobacco firm which still remains in the city of Havana.

1834
Por Larañaga emerges as a Cuban cigar brand.

1837
Ramón Allones emerges as a brand in Cuba while overall tobacco production reaches 6,000 tons.

1840
Manuel López of Cuba registers Punch as a trademark, to facilitate his entry into the British market.
The Cuban name for a puro or cigar adopts the name of Cuba's capital Havana.

1844
H. Upmann and Partagás register their trademarks.

1848
El Rey del Mundo and Sancho Panza are established as trademarks by the German wholesaler, Emilio Ohmstedt.

1850
Romeo y Julieta is created by Inocenci Alvarez and Manin Garcia.

1851
The Catalán José Gener founds Hoyo de Monterrey.
Cigar bands are first introduced and tobacco houses are soon commissioned by famous politicians, artists and society figures.

1920s
Bonnie and Clyde smoke Cuban cigars as they wreak havoc across the Southwest during the Depression.

1935
Montecristo, the most popular brand in the world, is created.

1959
Castro's insurgents enter Havana, nationalize the tobacco industry and place it under the powerful auspices of state owned, Cubatabaco.

1963
Cohiba, a term used by the Taíno Indians to describe cigars and tobacco, is launched as Fidel's choice cigar and reserved, at first, only for friends of the Revolution.

1992
The Línea 1492 is launched to commemorate the 5 centuries since tobacco was discovered in Cuba, by Christopher Columbus.

1992
The largest female smoking club, The George Sand Society, is founded in Santa Monica, CA. George Sand (1804-187O) the famous French writer, was known to stride about Paris in men's trousers, trench coats and neckties, smoking Cuban cigars - sometimes as many as 7 a day!

2000
The 1st Series of Edición Limitada is released and includes, Romeo y Julieta Exhibición No.2 Double Corona, Partagás Piramides and Montecristo Robustos. These cigars are marked by their oily, dark or maduro wrappers, and excellent construction. An additional band is added to these cigars which notes the date of the Edición Series.

2001
The 2nd Series of Edición Limitadas. These include Hoyo Particulares, Partagas Série D No. 3, Cohiba Píramides, Montecristo Double Corona and the Romeo y Julieta Robusto.

2002
Cohiba releases the X Anniversary Línea 1492 commemorative humidor to celebrate 10 years since the release of the Humidor.. 500 cases are produced and each contain the 1492 selection: Siglo I, II, III, IV, V with the special addition of the new Siglo VI.

2003
Siglo VI is released individually, in limited quantities, as an official member of the Cohiba collection. Known as a Cañonazo this exclusive cigar measures 150mm and has a ring gauge of 52.
The 3rd Series of Edición Limitadas is released and includes, Romeo y Julieta Hermosos No. 1, Partagas Série D No. 2, Hoyo de Monterrey Pirámides, Montecristo 'C' and Cohiba Double Coronas.

2004
Edmundo, the main character from the novel, The Count of Montecristo, is released onto the market as Montecristo's newest release in 30 years. Designed in a heavy ring gauge of 52 and a suitable length of 135mm or 5.3in
The 4th Series of Edición Limitadas is released and includes, Romeo y Julieta Hermosos No. 2 and Partagas Série D No. 1