Brands
Romeo y Julieta
Romeo y Julieta was founded in Havana in 1875 by Inocencio Álvarez and Manín García — named after Shakespeare’s lovers, whose names the marca carries to this day. From 1903 onwards, José “Pepín” Rodríguez Fernández turned it into a world brand; one of the most colourful entrepreneurs in Cuban cigar history, he travelled tirelessly across Europe and America, had personalised anillas made for royal households and celebrities, and even entered a racehorse named Julieta — brand cultivation long before the term existed.
The house’s most celebrated client was Winston Churchill: following his visit to Havana in 1946, the brand named its large format after him — the Churchill format became a generic term for the whole industry, and the Romeo y Julieta Churchill remains the flagship of the range to this day.
Stylistically, Romeo y Julieta is considered the balanced middle ground of Habanos — aromatic, rounded, neither mild nor heavy — and hence a classic recommendation for the passage from beginner to connoisseur. This brand too has existed in duplicate since the break of the Revolutionary years: alongside the Cuban version stands a Dominican-made one for the US market.