Montecristo Dominicain

There are two Montecristos, and many smokers do not know it. The brand, born in Havana in 1935, was nationalised in 1960; its owners left the island and took up the name outside Cuba. Since then a Cuban Montecristo and a non-Cuban Montecristo have coexisted, sold in different markets — the first everywhere except the United States, the second in the United States. Same name, near-identical band, two unrelated cigars.

The non-Cuban Montecristo is rolled in La Romana, in the La Romana factory, one of the largest in the industry. The scale changes everything: where a boutique house makes a few hundred thousand cigars a year, this factory counts them in tens of millions, with a consistency of manufacture that is in itself a technical feat.

The profile follows the Dominican tradition — mild to medium, creamy, pale wrapper — where the Cuban is fuller and earthier. It is not a failed copy: it is another reading of the same name, made for another palate.

Range Depth

• Montecristo Classic

  Wrapper Connecticut Shade · Strength Light

  Pale Connecticut wrapper, Dominican filler: cream, almond, cedar. The gentle profile that made the reputation of the Dominican cigar in the United States.

  Robusto · Toro

• Montecristo White

  Wrapper Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade · Strength Light

  Gentler still, almost milky. The morning cigar, or the one you hand to somebody who is starting out.

  Corona

🥃 Pairings

• Mild filter coffee

  Coffee

  A light coffee does not cover the cream and lets it settle.

• White agricole rum

  Spirits

  Its green nerve avoids the slack effect a sweet rum produces on an already gentle cigar.