Diplomáticos

Diplomáticos was born in 1966, according to the trade press (2025) and Wikipedia, as a cheaper alternative to Montecristo; Habanos dates it only to the 1960s. Wikipedia gives it a slightly milder blend and a lighter wrapper to please the French consumer. The five original sizes (Nos. 1 to 5) took the dimensions of Montecristo Nos. 1 to 5; Nos. 6 and 7, added in 1976 on the dimensions of Montecristo Especial Nos. 1 and 2, were dropped in the mid-1980s.

The comparison with Montecristo makes the identity of the brand: sizes numbered like its own, at a price a little below that of the equivalent size, says Wikipedia. The trade press writes that it never reached the reputation of Montecristo.

Habanos describes a Habano of medium to strong strength, entirely hand-rolled with long filler, with wrapper and filler from the Vuelta Abajo zone, in Pinar del Río. Wikipedia gives the No. 2, a pirámide, at 6 1/8 inches on ring gauge 52 (156 mm).

The trade press writes in October 2025 that the sizes have been cut back over time and that only the No. 2 remains in the current range; it presents the Cancilleres (5 1/8 inches on ring gauge 50, box of 25, launched in Sofia at the end of November 2025) as the first new regular-production size in decades. The brand also appears in the regional editions: Excelencia for Cuba (2015), Reserva Especial for the Caribbean and Central America (2021), Leal for Cuba (2023).

Where is it rolled? In Cuba the question has a two-storey answer. Since 2002 each Habanos brand has had a mother factory, responsible for leaf selection and blend, and its cigars may be rolled in any of the island's few dozen factories under the mother's supervision; Habanos does not publish that map, the trade press reconstructs it. Habanos names no factory. A trade-press report (2011) writes that the Romeo y Julieta / H. Upmann factory on Belascoaín is in charge of the brand, but that no Diplomáticos was being rolled there in May; Wikipedia says it is made at the José Martí factory, in Havana. In October 2026 habanos.com places it among the thirteen other brands of the portfolio of twenty-seven, outside the six global brands, the five value brands and the three volume brands; in 2019 the trade press counted twenty-one portfolio brands, Diplomáticos in the category of the others. The official page calls it relatively recent, from the 1960s, strongly resembling Montecristo and with sizes designated by numbers rather than names; it names neither a factory nor a vitola.

Range Depth

• No.2

  Wrapper Vuelta Abajo · Strength Medium-Full

  Pirámide: 6 1/8 inches on ring gauge 52 (156 mm), according to Wikipedia; the only size that the trade press says remains in the current range in October 2025. Medium to strong strength for the brand, long filler, Vuelta Abajo tobacco, says habanos.com.

  Pirámide

• No.4

  Wrapper Vuelta Abajo · Strength Medium

  Mareva: 5 1/8 inches on ring gauge 42 (130 mm), listed by Wikipedia; the trade press nevertheless wrote in October 2025 that only the No. 2 remains in the current range: the accounts diverge.

  Mareva

• Cancilleres

  Wrapper Vuelta Abajo

  5 1/8 inches on ring gauge 50, box of 25, launched in Sofia at the end of November 2025; presented by the trade press as the brand's first new regular-production size in decades. Capped heads, no pigtail.

🥃 Pairings

• Cappuccino

  Coffee

  Suggestion: a milky coffee for a cigar of medium to strong strength.

• Armagnac

  Spirits

  Suggestion: an aged grape spirit for a medium to strong strength.

✨ Notable limited editions

• Diplomáticos Excelencia (Edición Regional Cuba, 2015)
• Diplomáticos Reserva Especial (Edición Regional Caraïbes et Amérique centrale, 2021)
• Diplomáticos Leal (Edición Regional Cuba, 2023)
• Diplomáticos Genios (Edición Regional Phoenicia)