Por Larrañaga (meaning by Larrañaga) is the name of two cigar brands: one produced in Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic and Honduras for Altadis, a division of Imperial Tobacco.
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Cuba Production
Por Larrañaga was registered in 1834 by Ignacio Larrañaga, a Spanish immigrant who came to Havana in 1825. Larrañaga established his first factory at 58 San Miguel Street in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Por Larrañaga had become a well-known premium cigar brand producing both expensive and inexpensive cigars. In 1920, the company purchased a larger factory building for $100,000 on Carlos Tercero (Carlos III) Street in Havana.
In 1925, after years of labor interruptions and labor shortages Por Larrañaga became the first factory to make machine-made cigars, after importing new rolling and wrapping machines from the USA. The new technology could use high quality Cuban leaf and produce a cigar with an acceptable draw for only about 25% of the cost of a hand-rolled cigar, and a machine operator could be trained in two weeks as opposed to the years of training required to acquire the skill needed to rapidly hand-roll a cigar. Por Larrañaga's decision to introduce automated cigar making on the island resulted in strikes and a boycott by factory cigar-rollers, and Por Larrañaga was forced to return the machines to the seller.
In 1960, the Cuban revolutionary government nationalized all cigar companies including Por Larrañaga. At the time of the revolution, Por Larrañaga was the sixth largest producing Cuban brand. Production was moved from the building on Carlos III Street in Havana to the La Corona factory at Avenida 20 de Maio.
Up until the 1970s, Por Larrañaga remained a respectable and popular premium cigar brand. In the 1980s production fell dramatically and due to trademark litigation in the 1990s, export of the brand was reduced to only a few countries. For some time the brand was reduced to almost entirely machine-made or hand-finished and was mainly sold in Canada and the Middle East. Since 2002, all vitolas are totally hand-made, using either long-filler or short-filler leaf sourced from the Vuelta Abajo.
In 2006, Habanos produced a few thousand boxes of Por Larrañaga Lonsdales (a discontinued vitola much mourned by aficionados of the brand) for release in Germany. The cigars were packaged in 25-count dress boxes and marked with a special second band that read "Exclusivo Alemania" (Germany Exclusive).
Cigar Aficionado's December 2006 issue reviewed its first Por Larrañaga outside of its "Connoisseur's Corner". The petit corona selected scored 91 of 100 on the CA rating scale.
Non-Cuban Production
The brand was resurrected in the United States in early 2007 as Por Larrañaga Cuban Grade, by Florida-based importer Cuban Imports. No Cuban tobacco is used in these cigars; they use Dominican and Honduran filler, a Mexican binder, and either an Ecuadoran-grown Connecticut-seed wrapper or a Mexican maduro wrapper. It is also worth noting that Altadis USA has had some variations of the brand, none containing Cuban Tobacco, of course.
Vitolas in the Por Larrañaga Line
The following list of vitolas de salida (commercial vitolas) within the Por Larrañaga marque lists their size and ring gauge in Imperial (and Metric), their vitolas de galera (factory vitolas), and their common name in American cigar slang.
Hand-Made Vitolas
Edición Regional Releases
UK Regional Specialities Release of Por Larranaga Magnificos
Launched by Hunters & Frankau on the 1st November the Por Larranaga Magnificos is a Habanos Regional Speciality exclusively for sale in the UK (English Market Selection). Coming in at 6 3⁄4" by 50 ring gauge it was rolled to reproduce the size and flavour of the 1970s Por Larranaga Magnum.
Only 1400 limited edition numbered boxes were made with 1000 tens and 400 boxes of twenty-five.