Partagás

The Partagás factory was created in 1845 by Don Jaime Partagás, says the official Habanos page. Born in Arenys de Mar (Catalonia) on 7 December 1816 and settled in Cuba in 1831, he founded La Flor de Tabacos Partagás there, which continued an older factory, that of Joan Conill i Pi, says the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana. Also according to Habanos, the factory stayed for many years at 520 calle Industria, behind the Capitol in Havana, and is today at 806 calle San Carlos; the page does not date the change. Wikipedia and EcuRed place the 1845 address at 1 calle Cristina, before calle Industria (1850 according to EcuRed, which dates the foundation to 1838).

Habanos describes Partagás cigars as immediately recognisable by their intense flavour, of “Fuerte” strength, with a blend of Vuelta Abajo tobaccos, in Pinar del Río.

La lectura, the practice of reading aloud to the torcedores while they worked, was not born at Partagás: EcuRed dates the first reading in a factory to 21 December 1865, at the El Fígaro tabaquería in Havana, and that of the Partagás factory to 9 January 1866. Jaime Partagás accepted the request on one condition, prior censorship of the works, say EcuRed and Mental Floss; the latter sees in Saturnino Martínez, a tobacco worker and publisher of the newspaper La Aurora, perhaps the first person to have read newspapers and books amid the tobacco leaves. Mental Floss adds that the workers voted on the texts and enjoyed Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo. La lectura was banned in 1866 by Captain General Francisco Lersundi, then resumed after the Ten Years' War (1878); Mental Floss then shows it following Cuban rollers to Florida, to Tampa and Key West.

Jaime Partagás died in 1868: the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana says he died in Pinar del Río on 17 July 1868, of a gunshot received in a brawl born of commercial rivalries; EcuRed speaks of a land dispute with a neighbour, which is said to have led to his being fatally wounded in June, a month before he died; Wikipedia says he was murdered on one of his plantations. His son José took over the business, then the factory passed to the banker José A. Bances and to the Cifuentes family, who renamed it Cifuentes y Cía, according to Wikipedia; the Cuban government seized the factory, with fifteen others, on 15 September 1960. The Serie D No. 4, a robusto of 50 × 124 mm according to Wikipedia's list, is among the vitolas that Habanos says are especially well known in the brand, along with Lusitanias, 8-9-8 and the Pirámide Serie P No. 2; the Reserva of the Serie D No. 4 was, writes Habanos, the first made by the house.

The Lusitanias (49 × 194 mm) is the vitola of the brand's first Gran Reserva, the Cosecha 2007, presented by Habanos on 23 December 2013 in five thousand numbered boxes of fifteen; Habanos calls it a majestic vitola. The 8-9-8 Varnished is a dalia (lonsdale) of about 171 mm on ring gauge 43 according to Wikipedia's list; its name comes from the arrangement of the twenty-five cigars in the varnished box, eight, nine, then eight, explains the retailer Cigars Unlimited, which gives it as 6 ¾ inches.

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. Its mother factory is Partagás. At the end of 2011 the trade press wrote that the Industria factory, mother of Partagás, Bolívar, La Gloria Cubana, Ramón Allones and Quai d'Orsay, was to close for building work and that its production would move to the former El Rey del Mundo factory; it writes in 2020 that the factory closed for renovation in 2011, whereas Wikipedia gives 2 January 2012 for the move. In October 2026 the “Brands Academia” page of habanos.com lists 27 brands, six of them global — Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, Partagás, Hoyo de Monterrey, H. Upmann — which Habanos presents as the six most relevant and best-known brands for the enthusiast; in 2019 the trade press dated that classification and wrote that the global brands are sold wherever Cuban cigars are found and in all the Casas del Habano. The trade press counted 209 rollers on site in early 2016, for nearly 240 places, and noted that cigars could still be bought in the former factory, where nothing is rolled any more; in July 2020 a roof of that building collapsed, with no one injured according to Habanos sources, and the building, together with the Casa del Habano at the entrance, was closed.

Range Depth

• Serie D

  Wrapper Cuba (Vuelta Abajo) · Strength Full

  The Serie D No. 4, a robusto of 50 × 124 mm (4 7/8 inches, ring gauge 50) according to Wikipedia's list, is the vitola that Habanos cites first among the vitolas especially well known in the brand; its Reserva was, writes Habanos, the first made by the house. The series also includes the Serie D No. 5, presented in 2011 (110 mm, ring gauge 50 according to Wikipedia), and the Serie D No. 6, launched in 2014 (90 mm, ring gauge 50).

  No.4 · No.5 · No.6

• Lusitanias

  Wrapper Cuba (Vuelta Abajo) · Strength Full

  A vitola of 49 × 194 mm (7 5/8 inches, ring gauge 49), a prominente according to Wikipedia's list. Habanos cites it among the vitolas especially well known in the brand and calls it majestic when presenting, in December 2013, Partagás's first Gran Reserva.

  Lusitanias

• 8-9-8

  Wrapper Cuba (Vuelta Abajo) · Strength Medium-Full

  A dalia (lonsdale) of about 171 mm on ring gauge 43 according to Wikipedia's list, 6 3/4 inches and ring gauge 43 at the retailer Cigars Unlimited, which explains the name by the arrangement of the twenty-five cigars in the varnished box: eight at the top, nine in the middle, eight at the bottom. Habanos cites it among the vitolas especially well known in Partagás, without giving its size.

  8-9-8 Varnished

• Série P

  Wrapper Cuba (Vuelta Abajo) · Strength Full

  Pirámide Serie P No. 2, presented in 2005: Habanos writes that it quickly became a favourite habano of enthusiasts of strong-flavoured cigars. It measures 156 mm on ring gauge 52 (6 1/8 inches) according to Wikipedia's list.

• Série E

  Wrapper Cuba (Vuelta Abajo) · Strength Full

  Serie E No. 2, presented by Habanos in 2011 together with the Serie D No. 5: 140 mm on ring gauge 54 (5 1/2 inches), vitola de galera Duke (robusto extra) according to Wikipedia's list.

• Línea Maduro

  Wrapper Maduro

  Habanos dates the Maduro No. 1, launched for the Casas del Habano network and then added to the range, to 2015, and the launch of the Línea Maduro, with the Maduro No. 2 and No. 3, to 2018; the page does not give their sizes.

🥃 Pairings

• Bas-Armagnac 20 years

  Spirits

  The earthy depth of an aged Armagnac resonates with the rustic power of a Serie D. A pairing for those who know.

• Irish Porter

  Beer

  Surprising but formidable — the roasted grain of an Irish stout amplifies the cocoa notes of the Serie D.

• Aged Pu-erh 10 years

  Tea

  Fermented pu-erh, earthy and deep, is one possible tea pairing with Partagás: both play on an earthy register.

✨ Notable limited editions

• Partagás Lusitanias Gran Reserva Cosecha 2007
• Partagás Serie D No. 4 Reserva
• Partagás Series No. 1 Edición Limitada 2017 (Noblezas)
• Humidor Partagás Tropicales 175 Aniversario