New Ramon Allones Reserve blend now offered from Honduras

[RPB67]

Los Angeles, December 27 – There are old brands and there are historical brands. Ramon Allones is one of the latter, whose history is being updated as you read this.

An actual person, Ramon Allones emigrated to Cuba from Spain in the early years of the 19th Century and began making his own brands of cigars in either 1837 or 1846, depending on which report you believe. What seems settled, however, is that he was the first to employ bright color lithography on his boxes to help make his brand stand out.

Allones was quite successful and owned the La Eminencia factory in Havana. After his death, the brand was finally sold to Cifuentes, Pego y Cia., owners of the Partagas factory, in 1927. Until the time of nationalization of the cigar industry, Ramon Allones was the no. 2 brand in the Partagas line-up and was widely recognized as one of the finest cigars made in Cuba. It’s still made there today.

General Cigar acquired the Ramon Allones trademark for the United States market as a part of its 1975 deal with the Cifuentes family to produce Partagas cigars. (Ramon Cifuentes registered the mark in the U.S. way back in 1928!) General produced an elegant line of eight shapes in Jamaica, distributed primarily by Alfred Dunhill of London and while expensive, were highly regarded for their flavorful, medium-bodied taste.

Like Partagas, production eventually moved to the Dominican Republic, but the brand was fairly low in profile and almost disappeared from sight during the Cigar Boom. But it was re-blended in 2001, sporting a full-bodied taste in four shapes with a La Vega Especial wrapper grown in the Dominican Republic . . . and went nowhere.

The taste never caught on with smokers and although still available, it’s of little interest. But a new Ramon Allones is here!

It’s the Ramon Allones Reserve line, made at General’s massive factory in Cofradia, Honduras and distributed (as is the Dominican-made line) exclusively by Cigars by Santa Clara. Now available, it’s medium to full in body and offered in two styles:

• With an English Market Selection (medium brown) wrapper, grown in Ecuador of Sumatran seeds, combined with a Connecticut Broadleaf binder and a blend of Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan filler leaves, or

• With a Connecticut Broadleaf, maduro-shade wrapper, utilizing a Connecticut Shade binder and an interior blend of Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan tobaccos.

There are three sizes in the line to start:

• Allones No. 1, a 7-inch by 43-ring Lonsdale offered in boxes of 25;

• Allones No. 2, a Toro of 6 1/4 inches by 50 ring, also in 25s, and

• Corona Minor, a panatela of 5 1/4 inches by 38 ring, packaged in boxes of 30.

Lew Rothman, head of Cigars by Santa Clara, notes that the maduro-wrapped versions should be available in February.
%%pagebreak%% The new Ramon Allones line is the first made in Honduras, but not the first in the family! Ramon’s brother, Antonio Allones, made his own brand in Cuba called Flor de A. Allones as early as the 1880s, and it was produced in Honduras by Villazon & Co. (now part of General Cigar) for Alfred Dunhill of London beginning in the 1970s. Santa Clara is now the distributor of this brand, so maybe it could offer a “Brands of Brothers” deal?

[Demented]

Nice post, Thanks!

Dmntd

[boonedoggle]

Great info!

[omowasu]

Thanks again for a great article. Based on the blending, I have some reservations that the "new" non-Cuban Ramon Allones may have a "GNC", or Generic Non Cuban, taste profile. Only time will tell...