Por Larrañaga was registered in 1834 by Ignacio Larrañaga, a Spanish immigrant who came to Havana in 1825. Larrañaga established his first factory at 58 San Miguel Street in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Por Larrañaga had become a well-known premium cigar brand producing both expensive and inexpensive cigars. In 1920, the company purchased a larger factory building for $100,000 on Carlos Tercero Street in Havana. In 1925, after years of labor interruptions and labor shortages Por Larrañaga became the first factory to make machine-made cigars, after importing new rolling and wrapping machines from the USA. The new technology could use high quality Cuban leaf and produce a cigar with an acceptable draw for only about 25% of the cost of a hand-rolled cigar, and a machine operator could be trained in two weeks as opposed to the years of training required to acquire the skill needed to rapidly hand-roll a cigar. Por Larrañaga's decision to introduce automated cigar making on the island resulted in strikes and a boycott by factory cigar-rollers, and Por Larrañaga was forced to return the machines to the seller. In 1960, the Cuban revolutionary government nationalized all cigar companies including Por Larrañaga. At the time of the revolution, Por Larrañaga was the sixth largest producing Cuban brand. Production was moved from the building on Carlos III Street in Havana to the La Corona factory at Avenida 20 de Mayo. Up until the 1970s, Por Larrañaga remained a respectable and popular premium cigar brand. In the 1980s production fell dramatically and due to trademark litigation in the 1990s, export of the brand was reduced to only a few countries. For some time the brand was reduced to almost entirely machine-made or hand-finished and was mainly sold in Canada and the Middle East. Since 2002, all vitolas are totally hand-made, using either long-filler or short-filler leaf sourced from the Vuelta Abajo. In 2006, Habanos produced a few thousand boxes of Por Larrañaga Lonsdales for release in Germany. The cigars were packaged in 25-count dress boxes and marked with a special second band that read "Exclusivo Alemania". Cigar Aficionado's December 2006 issue reviewed its first Por Larrañaga outside of its "Connoisseur's Corner". The petit corona selected scored 91 of 100 on the CA rating scale.
Non-Cuban Production
Rights to the brand in the United States were acquired by Altadis U.S.A. In 2016, the company announced it would be manufacturing a new line of non-Cuban cigars under the Por Larrañaga label.
''Vitolas'' in the Por Larrañaga Line
The following list of vitolas de salida within the Por Larrañaga marque lists their size and ring gauge in Imperial, their vitolas de galera, and their common name in American cigar slang. Hand-Made Vitolas
Montecarlo - 6" × 33, Delicioso, a slim panetela
Panetela - 5" × 36, Veguerito, a short panetela using short-filler leaf
Petit Corona - 5" × 42, Mareva, a petit corona
Edición Regional Releases
Lonsdale - 6" × 42, Cervantes, a lonsdale
Robusto de Larrañaga - 4" × 50, Robusto, a robusto or rothschild
UK Regional Specialities Release of Por Larranaga Magnificos
Launched by Hunters & Frankau on 1 November the Por Larranaga Magnificos is a Habanos Regional Speciality exclusively for sale in the UK. Coming in at 6" by 50 ring gauge it was rolled to reproduce the size and flavour of the 1970s Por Larranaga Magnum. Only 1400 limited edition numbered boxes were made with 1000 tens and 400 boxes of twenty-five.
