H. Upmann cigars rare information

 There has been a time when suddenly disaster struck for H.Upmann. The cigar brand was privately owned and so was financially tied with the H. Upmann bank. The bank went with the extrapolating inflation in Weimar Germany and took the brand down with it. 

Fortunately, later, an opportunistic British firm, J. Frankau & Co brought the brand name and continued production until 1935. When the ownership of the brand changed hands again to Menendez Gracia y Cia Co. This is a name you will likely know if you have read a couple of our other cigar history blogs.

H. Upmann fact!

The Petit Upmann was the favourite cigar of President John F Kennedy, the 35th US president. The night before the Cuban embargo was signed, he had his aide gather every box he could gather from Washington for the president. Totalling 1200 cigars! One of the other famed cigars include the

H. Upmann Magnum 50 Single Gift Box

 - a perfect cigar gift set. The cigar hinders a predominantly woody smoke with zesty hints of citrus and smoky resemblance of scotch. There occurs some inconsistency in the draw in between but the mild to medium flavour is perfect throughout the stick which gives a good burn and the ash holds about a inch at a time and the smoke burns for almost 45 minutes to an hour.

H. Upmann Post-Revolution

Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution brought a huge change to every private industry in the nation. None were more affected than cigar distributors. With the new communist government posing a threat to every private firm in the country, Menendez and Garcia moved production of the brand to the Canary Islands and later to the Dominican Republic. Production continues there until this day, for the American market. The non-Cuban alternatives are often overlooked throughout the rest of the world, however.

Castro and his minister for industries followed through with nationalising the H. Upmann brand. The H. Upmann cuban cigars remain popular on the world market. Production of many top brands of Cuban cigars were moved to the H. Upmann factory such as Bolivar Cigars.

In 2002 big changes began to take place for the brand after the American tobacco giant Altadis bought a controlling share in the Cuban owned company. Most Cuban brands began their streamlining by eliminating redundant and weak-selling vitolas. H. Upmann were forced to discontinue an array of more than 30 vitolas much to the despair of many aficionados. By 2006, the line had been smoothed to only 16 cigars.

No matter how many or how few lines they produce, H. Upmann will always be admired as innovators in the industry and purveyors of many fine cigars.

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