One of the most famous Havana brands appeared on the market only in 1935, manufactured by H. Upmann factory, whose owners were Menendez, Garcia y Cia.
The name of the brand was reported to have been inspired from the novel "Le Comte de Montecristo", written by Alexandre Dumas in 1844. Montecristo brand shortly became the most popular of all Havana exports, due to a strong marketing effort of Alfred Dunhill of London.
From the very beginning, the Montecristo cigar brand first consisted of only five sizes identified by numbers instead of names. Other sizes were added later, in early '70s. Even nowadays, there are no machine-made shapes in this range and its strength is medium; in fact, it has become the standard by which all other Havanas are now judged.