Dos Santos

Dos Santos is the only Canary house in this atlas that is not from La Palma. In 1921 Joaquín Jesús Dos Santos González opened his factory at 16 calle Perojo, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and named it La Regenta. European demand for tobacco was strong after the First World War, and the port of Las Palmas could meet it: German ships had lain immobilised there since 1914, Cuban leaf on board. The house dates its founding to 1921; the Canary press traces the brand back to 1919.

Four generations have followed one another. Joaquín Roberto, the son, took over in the 1940s and added cigars — machine-made, then hand-rolled — to a production that had been only cigarettes and cut tobacco. He died in 1983; the third generation succeeded him, the fourth runs the house today.

The old calle Perojo factory no longer belongs to the house. The building is listed and houses an art centre that has kept the cigar's name: the Centro de Arte La Regenta. Production has moved to an industrial estate at Las Torres.

The figures say what this house really is. It reports over a billion cigarettes, six million machine-made cigars, thirty-eight million cigarillos — and five hundred thousand hand-rolled cigars. The premium end is its smallest volume. It exports to Germany, the Czech Republic, Chile, China, Hungary and Angola, also carries the Cónsul brand, and revived Condal in 2016.

Range Depth

• La Regenta — Línea Clásica

  Wrapper Light Connecticut; San Andrés or Ecuador on some vitolas · Strength Medium

  The brand that gave the 1921 factory its name. Light Connecticut wrapper, Cuban-seed filler from the Dominican Republic and Brazil: Canary tobacco does not enter this blend, and that is what separates Dos Santos from the houses of La Palma.

  Nº1 · Nº3 · Nº4 · Nº5

• La Regenta — Gama 1921

  Wrapper Light Connecticut, or maduro on some vitolas · Strength Medium

  The modern line, in the short thick formats the Línea Clásica ignores. Its name is the year of the calle Perojo factory, in figures.

  Half Corona · Robusto · Gran Toro · Maduro Titan