On Friday, the 5th and last day of the Habanos Festival we started off somewhat late. After breakfast and a couple of cigars in the patio of the Nacional, myself David and Rob made it over to “El Litoral”, a new restaurant in the Malecon, to meet James Suckling and David Savona from Cigar Aficionado.
Following the Montecristo No.2 being crowned as Cigar Aficionado’s cigar of the year, the guys from CA were interested on a cigar from our stock, a Montecristo No.2 from 1949, that we feel is the oldest Montecristo No.2.
Before the Montecristo was as popular as it is today, in the late 1940’s, the agents of the brand in UK and Ireland used to visit the retailers with sampler boxes of the five Montecristos in the range (No.1 to No.5) to make tobacconists aware of the brand and stock them in their stores. What is even more interesting about this box is a stamped envelope showing the price at the time per 1000 cigars, that mentions the No.2 as a pointed corona.
Amazingly, when comparing the box with a current box of the Montecristo No.2, the markings are almost identical. The shape of the Montecristo No.2 has changed slightly, as the old Montecristo No.2 is thinner – possibly from age shrinkage – with a longer shoulder. Click here to read David Savona’s blog
After a nice lunch and a bottle of Bollinger, we had a great chat about the history of James Fox and all the cigars that we used to get made exclusively for the store, like the Partagas Fox Selections and the La Corona Policromias. We smoked some of the Montecristo No.2 from the box code of the Cigar of the Year that we were kindly offered, while David and Gordon smoked some of our 1949 La Corona Policromia Red and our 1969 Fox Partagas No.1, which they rated 97 and 98 points respectively, in the connoisseur’s corner of their most recent issue of Cigar Aficionado (April 2014, p.158).
We made our way back to the Nacional, for a few cigars on the terrace and most of our group headed to the main event of the week, the traditional Gala evening, where over 1000 guests had the chance to see the two stars of the night; the H.Upmann No.2 Gran Reserva and Tom Jones performing live on stage! Tom Jones, who is an avid fan of Cuban cigars sang some of his best known hits on stage during his first ever visit to Cuba, and said: “I became a great cigar fan during the 60s, and I continue to be one”.
The traditional humidor auction took place, where six unique masterpieces from Cuba’s most coveted brands raised over $1.1 million dollars that will be donated to the Cuban Health System in their entirety. The 2013 Habanos awards were also given on the evening, with Ben Vinken, Urs Portmann, Arnaldo Vichot were awarded in different categories and Miguel Antonio Mendez who was the winner of the Habanosommellier competition.
Everyone seemed to have been very impressed with how the evening went, and also even more impressed with the new H.Upmann No.2 Reserva, which smokes exceptionally well. The Gala dinner brought a great close to a fantastic week.
