Montecristo Cigars

       I was never much of a cowboy but grew up on a ranch on the prairies in Canada.  I always thought that cows tasted great but that was as far as it went when it came to my passion for that creature.  As a kid I noticed that all winter you had a real docile creature on your hands but as soon as they had their calves in the spring, they wanted to kill anything in sight in order to keep their young safe… Well, that little detail was all I needed to know in order to make up my mind to get as far as I could away from cows and do anything else in life to make a living… I’ve had a lot of different jobs in my life from selling stuff to making stuff to doing stuff…. My feelings are that maybe I like doing stuff with my hands and breathing fresh air as I do it.This little cigar has inspired me to take a lot of photographs and it also made me remember all of the cigar smokers I met when I was younger… There was one cowboy in our home town that I’ll never forget… He was the village idiot and town drunk who owned a ranch beside one of my uncle’s farms… My uncle noticed one day that he had been missing a couple of calves in the spring and mentioned it to his cigar smoking cowboy neighbor. The neighbor told my uncle that he thought he saw me in my uncle’s pasture a week before… Now this is a bit of a weird and inaccurate fact because I was attending a private school a few hundred  miles away when the cows were being rustled.. Next day I was pulled out of social studies class at 10:00 AM in the morning and told to walk into a room where a couple of RCMP were waiting to question me..  At the age of 15 I was a small, baby faced kid and as I look back at that day I can’t help but wonder how the cops must have felt as they asked me about my whereabouts the previous Sunday… Well, I was in church the day in question and had almost 400 witnesses to back up my claim… It was a wasted trip for our discouraged law enforcement officials and I was told I could return to class… To this day I don’t know of anyone else in my peer group who have ever been questioned about and under the suspicion of being a cattle rustler..Life can get really interesting when there are cowboys around.

       Montecristo cigars were started by the founders, Alonzo Menendez and Pepe Garcia in 1935 with just 5 sizes…Montecristo, first known as H. Upmann Montecristo Selection and sold through Dunhill in New York, was a prestigious sideline to test Mendendez’s leaf skills and Garcia’s knowledge of production… The name change to Montecristo was inspired by a British firm, John Hunter, which was appointed as the British agent. the rival company Frankau handled Upmann and wanted Montecristo to stand on it’s own…After Castro came into power the Menendez and Garcia families moved to the Canary Islands and Monte’s continuity was provided by a local legendary figure, Jose Manuel Gonzales, known as “Masinguila”…. He is considered in Havana, to this day, as one of the hardest taskmasters for the rollers he supervises and is generally credited with much of the consistancy in quality and wonderful blending that is characteristic of this brand.

       Every now and then I am gifted with cigars that do NOT come from Cuba…. No problem, I love smoking…. REALLY love smoking and so whenever a friend drops by with a few cigars for me to try out I feel fortunate, grateful, appreciative and every emotion that a free cigar can give you…. I see no reason to start slamming brands from countries other than Cuban, so I won’t but WOW, every time I light up a cigar, regardless of it’s price or quality, I always tend to feel the same sense of disappointment. The one thing I DO appreciate about non-Cuban cigars is their ash….. see below….That is one FINE white ash…… Great soil the tobacco plant was grown in ……. Nice ash……… BUT…….  Nothing close to what I get out of a Cuban Montecristo.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some beautiful grey white ashes on Monte cigars but, for me, the taste is the clincher. .. NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING gives me the same sense of enjoyment I get from a Monte 2, an Edmundo or even a joyitas… It is in the soil, the curing process and the age old tradition that comes out of Cuba… I can see that Non-Cubans are high quality, wonderfully rolled and wrapped…. BUT…. I’m sorry……. The love isn’t there for me!!!!!!!

What you are looking at in the picture above will be the cigar I will smoke tomorrow during the Canada /US Olympic gold medal round hockey game.  The Canadian team has already been beaten by the US and the tension on the streets of vancouver is intense whenever you ask anyone about their opinion of this upcoming game.  I love it!!!!  Last night I was in Surrey at the Holland Park venue and the cheering and screaming was deafening during the Canada/Slovakia game.  Even though the people weren’t at the game but watching giant screens in the room, people were chanting, screaming, cheering and I’m sure my hearing was permanently affected.  Yeah yeah, alcohol was involved, which probably led to the ever rising decibels, but this city has NEVER seen this kind of spirit!!! Tomorrow I’ll be on the deck with my Monte, a few good friends and some port…. The game starts at noon and that’ll be why I’ll stay away from Scotch……Well……. Maybe for the first period anyway!!!!

       I’ve been a big fan of the Music of New Orleans for years, have been listening to Cajun music and trying to learn about the history of that fantastic art-form.  Doctor John,  Professor Long Hair,  Allen Toussaint and many many Zydeco artists have defined what the sound of the Mardi Gras is all about.  Thats today!!  Yesterday it was the beautiful jazz sounds of Louis Armstrong and the jazz that was formed at the beginning of the last century.  Thats right folks, jazz is officially over 100 years old!! Wow…… Considerably older than Montecristo cigars that were born in July of 1935.  Jazz music has been evolving for well over 100 years now while we have to wait 25 more years to see Montecristo’s Centennial.  One can only imagine what kind of fantastic cigar will be introduced at that time.. What the cost will be in 25 years is anyone’s guess……

Its Official!!!  The spring has come to the Pacific North-West!!  It has been a fairly mild winter and my hard-core golf buddies and I have spent a lot of time out on the links, but you really know it is official whenever you see the crocuses and Montecristo cigars in bloom… The two little beauties ( petit Edmundo and a No. 4 )in the picture below, have popped their heads out of the ground and are now soaking up the sunlight.  My first thoughts are always to run out with my garden clippers and harvest the first ones of the year, but I know that if I’m patient, and let them go to seed, I’ll have a lot more coming up next spring… Nothing is finer than having a cigar sitting for a length of time in the humidor, then seeing a bloom ( Plume as well ) appear on the wrappers.  Unlike the purple blooms you see below, a bloom on a cigar is more whitish. This is a sign that the cigars are aging properly in your humidor and happy,  healthy cigars will only make for very very happy smokers..This is going to be a fine year coming up.. I predict there will be a lot of cigars, golf and spring flowers !!

 Since we’re on the topic of the Montecristo cigar bands and the beautiful visuals that the company has used in it’s marketing, I’d like to talk for a moment about their logo.  In 1935 when Alfonso Menendez bought the Particulares factory he started a whole new brand, Montecristo,  and you could say at that point in time commenced to take over the world. In 1937 Menendez purchased the H’ Upmann factory and moved his production team to the new factory.  I’ve mentioned that the Monctcristo band has a certain simple elegance and after taking a look at a lot of the different Cuban cigar logos, I’ve been noticing that the Montecristo logo is a lot simpler in design.  This logo was designed by John Hunter Morris and Elkan Co. Ltd. out of England.  What I found to be interesting is that the logo contains a triangle of 6 swords surrounding a fleur-de-lis. Traditionally the fleur-de-lis is a very French symbol resembling the lily……. See below!

     No one has done more for the bands that wrap around and identify a cigar than a man , not from Cuba or Spain but Holland.  Gustave Bock had the idea that the best way to identify and distinguish his own Cuban cigars would be to dress them up in a simple paper ring.  The floodgates then opened and every king, world leader and business tycoon then believed that they should have their own bands, signifying their own self importance in cigar rings of their design.  Their names, their initials and likenesses were then printed, gilded and painted on their own rings which then set their imaginations on fire and they demanded that cigars be designed and named after them.  At that point in history the Spanish Court had sole rights to what was supposed to be the best cigar of that time…. The Regalia !!  Even the Iberian clergy got involved and their cigars were produced in Cuba by priests who used tobacco grown by and produced by monks… As time went on cigar rings became more and more ostentatious and even today they sparkle in the sunlight with gold, red and rich elegant colors……. All except Montecristo…… Today Montecristo makes the most popular cigars in the world and their band is understated, simple and lets you know that the treasure is not in a bold and bright ring but in the tobacco that we have grown to love!

Later on this year we will be seeing a release from Habanos S.A. that will be available to Las Casas Del Habanos worldwide.   350 cedar and mahogany  replicas of an ancient humidor will be built for Montecristo by the well known Cuban goldsmith, Ernesto Aguilera… Inside these marvelous creations will be 50 Montecristo Double Coronas which should thrill Monte smokers of that particular dimension ( 49 ring gauge and just over 7 1/2 inches)… No word yet of the cost but something tells me that devotees to this most famous brand of Cuban cigars will be dishing out a pretty penny to get their hands on a collectors item of this calibre.

       2010 will see the birth of another LE for Montecristo in june/july.  A cigar measuring 5 7/8 ” with a ring gauge of 52 could be as fine a cigar as the Montecristo Robusto LE 2006. … Last year in central British Columbia my good friend Norm, shown below:

and I smoked one of those fine cigars that had 3 years to age in the humidor.. What we both noticed was a cigar of exceptional complexity and construction that delivered an hour and a half of enjoyment,  embellishing the great conversation and companionship we  had as we waited for the trout to show up..  I don’t think there is anything finer than to sit back on a sunny day with a good friend out on the lake. This particular day we saw a few trout come to the boat while our good buddy, Doug, was fishing fast and furiously on the other side of the lake ( well, thats fishing! ) A few years in the humidor never fails to mellow an already superior cigar, turning it into a smoking experience that will stay in your memories for a lifetime…. We plan on getting together again this year in June for more trout fishing, fine dining and passing around the bug spray…….Rainbow trout and Montecristo Cigars are a perfect marriage like good friends and good weather out on the lake and hopefully I’ll have a few of these new cigars on the trip!