Which factory in Cuba makes which cigars?

[Jerryvonkramer]

Does anyone have any up-to-date information on this? Scouring the internet I've been able to find the following, but some factories were said to have closed to be refurbished and it's not clear if they were ever reopened (the Upmann one). One of the things I don't really understand is how Cuba is able to make so many cigars that taste so different with leaves mostly from the same region. I have been trying to figure out if there's anything to the factories. Clearly, the ones made at the Partagas factory are mostly the strongest and boldest, but other than that I cannot see any rhyme or reason. Is this all totally opaque or does someone have any insight into how these wildly different tasting notes come out of the same tobacco?

 

Briones Montoto (Romeo y Julieta) factory

Romeo y Julieta
Quai D'Orsay
Cuaba
El Rey Del Mundo
Saint Luis Rey

Francisco Pérez Germán (Partagas)

Partagas
Bolivar
Ramon Allones
La Gloria Cubana

El Laguito

Cohiba
Trinidad

José Martí (H Upmann)

H Upmann
Diplomaticos
Montecristo

La Corona

San Cristobal
Hoyo de Monterrey
Por Larranga
Flor de Cano
Punch

Lázaro Pena

Juan Lopez
Fonseca
Sancho Panza

Pinar del Río (Francisco Donatién)

Vegas Robaina
Vegueros

[NSXCIGAR]

Your list would have been accurate until the early 2000s. Now any cigar can be made at any factory with the lone exception of Lanceros which are officially stated to all be made at El Laguito. 

That said even today there are some cigars that are almost all made at certain factories or provinces. For example almost all SC, Cuaba and PL comes from La Corona. Certain vitolas and models seem to come from certain provinces also. For example all Salomones come from Partagas. All Romeos come from La Corona. All Sir Winston comes from Artemisa province and all Britanicas come from Villa Clara regardless of brand. 

[Arabian]

9 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Your list would have been accurate until the early 2000s. Now any cigar can be made at any factory with the lone exception of Lanceros which are officially stated to all be made at El Laguito. 

That said even today there are some cigars that are almost all made at certain factories or provinces. For example almost all SC, Cuaba and PL comes from La Corona. Certain vitolas and models seem to come from certain provinces also. For example all Salomones come from Partagas. All Romeos come from La Corona. All Sir Winston comes from Artemisa province and all Britanicas come from Villa Clara regardless of brand. 

I think this box of Monte Esp I purchased last year were made at La Corona, I heard Lancero rollers are only available at El Laguito or maybe I heard wrong and there's a higher chance to find them over there than any other factory for Lancero sticks.

[NSXCIGAR]

8 hours ago, Arabian said:

I think this box of Monte Esp I purchased last year were made at La Corona, I heard Lancero rollers are only available at El Laguito

Many rollers can roll Laguito No. 1. I've never seen a box of Monte Especial from El Laguito. Your box came from Cabaiguan, Sancti Spiritus. And SP El Rey and ERDM La Reina certainly didn't come from Laguito. 

Lanceros are only Cohiba Lanceros. It's impossible to know where everything really comes from but the only cigar to have an official statement about its factory is the Lanceros (and the RA Phoenicio 40). 

Even BHK has been known to come from other factories although it's uncommon, especially lately. 

[Arabian]

5 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Many rollers can roll Laguito No. 1. I've never seen a box of Monte Especial from El Laguito. Your box came from Cabaiguan, Sancti Spiritus. And SP El Rey and ERDM La Reina certainly didn't come from Laguito. 

Lanceros are only Cohiba Lanceros. It's impossible to know where everything really comes from but the only cigar to have an official statement about its factory is the Lanceros (and the RA Phoenicio 40). 

Even BHK has been known to come from other factories although it's uncommon, especially lately. 

Jemma from H&F mentioned that La Reina were produced at EL Laguito at 34:40, again I might not following up correctly. 

 

[NSXCIGAR]

5 hours ago, Arabian said:

Jemma from H&F mentioned that La Reina were produced at EL Laguito at 34:40, again I might not following up correctly. 

You're absolutely correct. Most if not all La Reina do have El Laguito codes. I don't know if HSA ever acknowledged all La Reina would be rolled there. 

SP El Rey however were not and Monte Especial are not. 

[ATGroom]

7 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Your list would have been accurate until the early 2000s. Now any cigar can be made at any factory with the lone exception of Lanceros which are officially stated to all be made at El Laguito. 

Correct me if you have a source, but I don't think the Lanceros are "officially" stated to all come from El Laguito. I have heard that the EL factory manager has told people that on tours, but factory managers say a lot of things. I don't think it has ever come out of Habanos directly (and Habanos says a lot of things as well, to be honest). I'd buy it if Tabacuba said it somewhere, but Tabacuba rarely says anything at all.

I had a look in the CCW database, and while 90% do come from EL it looks as though there have been batches from Ariguanabo factory in Artemisa province most years since 2012, including 2023.

I'd say the high EL production is likely more for pragmatic reasons rather than any rule. Production volume for Lanceros is low. QC on them is difficult. EL has enough rollers that can do it, so in general they keep them to themselves. But if the stars align such that a new batch of Lanceros needs to be rolled and EL is tied up rolling the new Cohiba RE or something then I don't think they hesitate in sending the order to Ariguanabo.

Much smaller sample set, but FWIW 100% of La Reina in my DB come from EL. 

Smaller sample again, but 100% of El Rey come from Ariguanabo.

[Salomones]

Manufacturing and boxing are two different things.
Many provincial factories only produce and outsource to other factories for sorting and boxing now. Primarily to Havana.

[NSXCIGAR]

1 hour ago, ATGroom said:

Correct me if you have a source, but I don't think the Lanceros are "officially" stated to all come from El Laguito

I'm looking for the source as I'm sure I read it but I'm coming up empty. And you're correct--I found a 2017 box on BR from Ariguanabo. First non-EL Lanceros I've ever seen. 

https://www.bondroberts.com/product/view/4103/Cohiba_Lanceros_2017_Varnished_Boîte_Nature_Box_of_25_cigars

Of course I wasn't claiming I could ever know that they all absolutely come from EL, only that I believed they claimed it and that Laguito No. 1 do come from other factories. 

13 minutes ago, Salomones said:

Manufacturing and boxing are two different things.
Many provincial factories only produce and outsource to other factories for sorting and boxing now. Primarily to Havana.

This I've never heard of. Seems like a logistical nightmare. They'd have to be transporting loose sticks from all over the countryside to Havana factories, keep track of all the cigars' sources, band and sort them and have 40 different stamps for every provincial in the same room? Why wouldn't they just have the provincials box them and send them directly to the HSA warehouse? 

I have a few contacts to Havana factory managers there and will ask if they're receiving loose cigars from other factories. 

[Li Bai]

14 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

All Romeos come from La Corona.

Though I'm not a big fan of RyJ, I come to have boxes of Cazadores, Nobles and Dianas and none of them come from La Corona, fwiw.

[ATGroom]

2 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

This I've never heard of. Seems like a logistical nightmare. They'd have to be transporting loose sticks from all over the countryside to Havana factories, keep track of all the cigars' sources, band and sort them and have 40 different stamps for every provincial in the same room? Why wouldn't they just have the provincials box them and send them directly to the HSA warehouse? 

I've heard it, but never from anybody I had any reason to think of as credible.

I guess on the face of it there is some logic to it. When the Guanabacoa box factory opened, if I recall correctly the press release said that it replaced five other facilities. If there has been a consolidation of box factories and all the boxes are coming from Havana, then it would use more fuel to truck the boxes out to the provinces and then truck them back again full, then it would to truck wheels of cigars one way to be boxed in Havana.

I imagine the boxing factory would stamp them all with its own stamp, not the stamp of the producing factory.

[LizardGizmo]

It's amazing how widespread production is across the factories, especially the mother factories. At Laguito you'll see all types of Cohiba, obviously, but also a ton of Partagas D4 and E2 being rolled, as well as many limited releases. Corona, being the largest factory, also has a huge variety including Cuaba, Cohiba, Montecristo, Partagas, SCDLH, Romeo and so many others. Last time I was there they were rolling a ton of Siglo 2 and Siglo 6 as well.

As @ATGroom said, I think all bets are off right now with Cohiba. There is no set rule for any cigar or any vitola. They will do anything necessary to produce what they need to at any time. I mean theyre rolling BHK and 55th Anniversary at factories other than Laguito - and in provincial factories - amazing to me, considering the price on those cigars. 

I believe the only stuff that currently has a single home is large format Cuaba, rolled at Corona, but again I am not 100% sure of this. I've been told this, but I don't necessarily believe it.

6 hours ago, Salomones said:

Manufacturing and boxing are two different things.
Many provincial factories only produce and outsource to other factories for sorting and boxing now. Primarily to Havana.

Given the logistical challenges in Cuba, both with roads and fuel, I don't see them boxing large quantities of loose cigars in cardboard at a faraway provincial factory, transporting them across the island to Havana risking damage or destruction, and then unboxing them to put them in their shipping boxes and then into master crates. It makes more sense to do it once, which is why we have so many factory codes for so many factories. If they were transporting BHK across the island back to Havana, we know they would love for that box to be stamped with a Laguito code, not a provincial. The boxes are stamped where they box them. Boxing is arguably the easiest part of the production process, and little talent is required, so I think doing it on site at each factory is likely what's happening. I can only see them transporting loose cigars to another factory producing the same cigars if they have too wide of a variety of colors and color matching a box of cigars is proving difficult for them - but again, I see this as rare or highly unlikely at best.

[Salomones]

13 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Davon habe ich noch nie gehört. Scheint ein logistischer Albtraum zu sein. Sie müssten lose Stöcke aus dem ganzen Land zu Fabriken in Havanna transportieren, alle Herkunft der Zigarren im Auge behalten, sie bündeln und sortieren und 40 verschiedene Briefmarken für jede Provinz im selben Raum haben? Warum sollte man sie nicht einfach von den Provinzialen verpacken und direkt an das HSA-Lager schicken lassen? 

Ich habe dort einige Kontakte zu Fabrikmanagern in Havanna und werde fragen, ob sie lose Zigarren von anderen Fabriken erhalten. 

Logistically, it is even easier to transport large boxes with bundles of cigars than to first have empty boxes come from Havana to be filled and then transport the full ones back to Havana for shipping. They save a sorter in the factory and so on if you centralize it. Above all, it saves gas.

Seen it several times in Holguin and had it confirmed by the manager there.

Another example is Gibara. I've been there myself too. In my opinion the factory is bigger than the one in Holguin. Around 10,000 cigars leave the factory every day. But I haven't seen this factory code on boxes in many years.

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, Salomones said:

They save a sorter in the factory and so on if you centralize it. Above all, it saves gas.

Not much. There's now an extra trip from the provincial to Havana to the HSA warehouse instead of directly from the provincial to the HSA warehouse. Also loose bundles take up double the space that boxed cigars do so now you need two trucks to transport the same number of cigars.

And they'd only be able to sort the cigars from each provincial at a time taking care not to commingle any cigars from any other factory and then stamp them all appropriately. I've been in the boxing department of La Corona several times and never seen anywhere near the amount of stamps you'd need to stamp all the boxes accordingly nor have I ever seen two codes being stamped in the same factory. I just don't believe it's possible to keep everything separate. 

4 hours ago, Salomones said:

it is even easier to transport large boxes with bundles of cigars

The roads outside of Havana are horrendous and they're using frankensteined trucks from the 1950s. There's absolutely no way you could toss bundles in a box and get them hundreds of miles to Havana without damage.

This is from CA, 2020 after the new box factory opened:

wooden boxes that will leave the factory ready to be affixed with the printed lithographs of the particular brand they are destined to hold. The labels will then be glued in place at the various cigar factories scattered around Havana and its surrounding countryside.

https://www.cigaraficionado.com/article/inside-cuba-s-new-cigar-box-factory

[NSXCIGAR]

11 hours ago, Li Bai said:

Though I'm not a big fan of RyJ, I come to have boxes of Cazadores, Nobles and Dianas and none of them come from La Corona, fwiw.

Romeos vitola, not RyJs. 

[Li Bai]

2 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Romeos vitola, not RyJs. 

Sorry, I misunderstood as Romeos are not so common cigars 😅

Tbh all this is quite new to me, as in my (other) cigar community we don't buy cigars without touching/seeing/smelling them (we can't buy online in France) box codes and factories are not that big a subject.

I know many friends who are seasoned aficionados and collectors but we don't talk much about it. We do, but not as much as here, I'm learning a lot about that with you guys so thank you !

[NSXCIGAR]

Hard to find pictures from inside provincials but these are since 2018. Ariguanabo and Santa Clara:

[Salomones]

2 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Und sie könnten jeweils nur die Zigarren aus den einzelnen Provinzen sortieren und dabei darauf achten, keine Zigarren aus anderen Fabriken zu vermischen, und sie dann alle entsprechend stempeln. Ich war mehrere Male in der Boxabteilung von La Corona und habe noch nie annähernd die Menge an Stempeln gesehen, die man braucht, um alle Boxen entsprechend zu stempeln. Ich glaube einfach nicht, dass es möglich ist, alles getrennt zu halten.

That is it. Nothing is kept separate, therefore no box codes from various factories that produce. They probably won't be boxed in the EL.

There are plenty of other, central options.

[NSXCIGAR]

1 hour ago, Salomones said:

That is it. Nothing is kept separate, therefore no box codes from various factories that produce. They probably won't be boxed in the EL.

There are plenty of other, central options.

I'm not sure I understand. There are over 40 provincial codes being stamped at any given time. 

As far as Laguito they are definitely boxing cigars there. 

[Bijan]

2 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I'm not sure I understand. There are over 40 provincial codes being stamped at any given time. 

As far as Laguito they are definitely boxing cigars there. 

He means the cigars shipped in wheels to be boxed are just jumbled together without much thought given to proper box codes. But they're not doing this remote boxing in Laguito.

5 hours ago, Salomones said:

Another example is Gibara. I've been there myself too. In my opinion the factory is bigger than the one in Holguin. Around 10,000 cigars leave the factory every day. But I haven't seen this factory code on boxes in many years.

Presumably, this would be an example of one factory producing cigars but they get some other stamp in another factory.

[SCgarman]

I had a 2014 box of Monte4 from El Laguito. Goes to show there are no rules, most any marca can be rolled anywhere. BTW, those Monte 4 were excellent in every way.

[NSXCIGAR]

On 5/20/2024 at 4:13 PM, Bijan said:

He means the cigars shipped in wheels to be boxed are just jumbled together without much thought given to proper box codes. But they're not doing this remote boxing in Laguito.

I got that but aside from the totally inefficient transportation of loose wheels/bundles hundreds of miles on medieval quality roads why bother stamping from specific factories in the province particularly if they're not even getting it right? 

The easiest explanation is the cigars are being boxed and stamped at the factories they're made in and sent directly to the HSA warehouse. It's going to take some serious evidence to push me off that position. 

As far as the anecdotal example of Gibara I could see that factory transporting cigars to another nearby factory in the same province for sorting or boxing but not all the way to a Havana factory. If they were going to Havana wouldn't they be stamping for that factory like they do all the others? Seems to me that's a special case where that specific factory doesn't sort and box. 

Also if you're referring to Gibara as what appears on the code list as "Jibara" it's always had a code and is most currently LTA. Most famously it had the PUR code in 2015-16 that was the last run of BCG that were phenomenal. 

On 5/20/2024 at 4:32 PM, SCgarman said:

I had a 2014 box of Monte4 from El Laguito. Goes to show there are no rules, most any marca can be rolled anywhere. BTW, those Monte 4 were excellent in every way.

Lots of cigars are made at EL. The batches of E2 from Laguito a few years ago were very highly regarded. And with the confirmation that even Lanceros have been made outside of Laguito all bets are off and anything can be made anywhere at any time. 

[NSXCIGAR]

12 hours ago, LizardGizmo said:

I believe the only stuff that currently has a single home is large format Cuaba, rolled at Corona

That would be the one that if I had to bet money I'd say has never been rolled elsewhere since they left BM in the 2000s. And I'd be shocked if Vegueros has only ever come from Pinar. 

[Fugu]

The factory in Guanaboca is a box factory not a ‘boxing’ factory, so a carpentry workshop essentially. They have no expertise whatsoever in colour sorting, banding and packaging of cigars, dressing of boxes etc.

[NSXCIGAR]

11 hours ago, Fugu said:

The factory in Guanaboca is a box factory not a ‘boxing’ factory, so a carpentry workshop essentially. They have no expertise whatsoever in colour sorting, banding and packaging of cigars, dressing of boxes etc.

And it also would make more sense to get the boxes out to the provincials from Holguin instead of taking everything to Havana and back from Holguin. Not boxing in the factories just presents so many logistical issues that as I said I'd need a lot of evidence it's happening before I was convinced. I've seen pics of boxes in every provincial I've ever seen so I just don't think there's anything to it.