Quintero (cigar brand)

Quintero is the name of two brands of premium cigar, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced from Nicaraguan and Honduran tobacco for the Franco-Spanish tobacco monopoly Altadis SA.

History

The brand is believed to have been founded as "Quintero y Hermanos" in Cienfuegos, Cuba in 1924, the same year that Agustín Quintero built his cigar factory. By the 1940s, Quintero was a major export brand and sold especially well in the Spanish market.

Production continued through the Revolution, but beginning in 1970s and through the 1990s, the Quintero line would gradually shrink from a handmade marca to currently only consisting of six machine-made and/or hand-finished sizes. Despite this, Quintero has retained its popularity with Spanish cigar smokers and has the distinction of being the only Cuban machine-made brand to be globally marketed by Habanos SA.

Quintero also produces three machine-made cigarillos: the Mini, the Club, and the Purito.

In recent years, Altadis has used the name "Quintero" for use on a line of Nicaraguan-Honduran blend cigars for the American market.

"Vitolas" in the Cuban Quintero Line

The following list of "vitolas" (sizes) within the Quintero line lists their measurements in English and metric, their "vitolas de galera" (factory name), and their conventional name in American cigar slang.

"Machine-Made and Hand-Finished Vitolas"
*Breva - 5 1/2" x 40 (140 x 15.87 mm) Nacional, a corona
*Nacional - 5 1/2" x 40 (140 x 15.87 mm) Nacional, a corona
*Panetela - 5" x 36 (127 x 14.29 mm) Veguerito, a short panetela
*Londres Extra - 4 7/8" x 40 (123 x 15.87 mm) Standard, a petit corona
*Purito - 4 1/8" x 29 (106 x 11.51 mm) Chico, a cigarillo

See also

* Cigar brands

External links

* [http://www.habanos.com Official website of Habanos S.A.]
* [http://www.cigars-review.org/cigars/Quintero-y-Hno.htm Quintero Cigars Reviews]