The Habanos Size Guide

Gregory Mottola
Posted: April 2, 2007

You may know your lonsdales from your lanceros, but do you know your tacos from your pacos? Unless you're a cigar roller at the Partagas factory in Havana, trade names for Cuban cigar sizes before they hit the commercial market can be quite confusing. To make sense of the Habanos portfolio, the Habanos Size Guide poster graphically decodes the factory aliases of every handmade Cuban cigar in production as of 2006.

The framable chart (think smoking room or cigar store) measures 33 inches wide by 42 1/2-inches tall and is arranged by ring gauge—slender, standard and "heavy," or fat. Each cigar is depicted with its dimensions, factory name and all the commercial brand names associated with that particular vitola. Limited editions and special releases are not included.

The supplementary short-filler cigar chart profiles hand-made sizes from brands like Flor de Cano and Quintero.

The guide is sold in two ways: as a single poster or as a four-part set separated into a series of smaller individual posters. The set includes a chart showing all of Habanos S.A.'s handmade, short-filler cigars, which are not represented on the larger poster.

The comprehensive reference chart was created by Habanos, Cuba's cigar exporting organization, and Simon Chase, marketing director for Hunters & Frankau, London's importer of Cuban cigars. It is sold at licensed La Casa del Habano retail shops around the world and is printed in six languages. In the United Kingdom, the large poster retails for £15 (about $30), the set for £17 (about $34).