Por Larranaga

Por Larranaga was formed by Ignacio Larranaga in 1834 and by the closing stages of the 19th Century had become a very revered and popular brand by producing cigars of both affordable and expensive price ranges. The first factory to make machine made cigars was owned by Por Larranaga in 1925. This was hugely controversial at the time and workers even boycotted and effectively rebelled against this. Por Larranaga was the 6th biggest Cuban cigar brand when the revolution happened.

Por Larranaga maintained its status of a premium cigar brand that was highly respected up until the 1970’s but unfortunately the following decade saw them struggle and their sales fell dramatically. Exportation of the cigars they produced were reduced to just a few select countries due to the trademark litigation in the 1990’s. Por Larranaga had a large spell of time where they were creating only machine-made or hand-finished cigars that were mainly sold in Canada and Middle Eastern countries. Since then, the brand has made somewhat of a comeback and 2 of their 4 vitolas are made totally by hand.

The Germans had a nice surprise in 2006 when Habanos decided to produce a few thousand boxes of Por Larranaga Lonsdales containing 25 cigars each and released them to the German market exclusively. These cigars sported a special band stating ‘Exclusivo Alemania’ which translates to Exclusive to Germany.

In December 2006, Cigar Aficionado reviewed its first Por Larranaga cigar which was a Petit Corona Selected, it scored an impressive 91, a sign that Por Larranaga still had the potential to create outstanding cigars.

Click here to see our range of Por Larranaga cigars

Written by Oliver Partington - 18/07/2020