Altadis U.S.A. Celebrating H. Upmann’s 180th Anniversary With New Release From AJ Fernandez

This year, the H. Upmann brand marks its 180th anniversary. In celebration of that achievement, the non-Cuban H. Upmann brand—sold only in the U.S. by Altadis U.S.A.—is getting a limited edition release offered in two different sizes.

According to a report from Cigar Aficionado, the new H. Upmann 180th Anniversary is made entirely of Nicaraguan tobacco, including a medio tiempo wrapper. Medio tiempo is a priming of tobacco—the way a plant is divided into sections vertically—that is found above the ligero priming, typically the highest priming. It’s only found on certain plans and only some growers go through the effort of classifying it separately from ligero. Given its position on the plant, if a plant has medio tiempo tobacco growing on it, that tobacco should be the strongest tobacco from that plant. In recent years, a variety of manufacturers have marketed their cigars as explicitly containing medio tiempo tobacco. Previously, that tobacco was typically classified as ligero.

AJ Fernandez also produced the H. Upmann 175th Anniversary, which also used medio tiempo tobacco for the wrapper. According to the report, the two blends are different.

The standard H. Upmann 180th Anniversary is a 7 x 50 Churchill that has an MSRP of $22.50 per cigar. It will be sold in boxes of 10 cigars and 5,000 boxes will be made.

There’s a more limited—and expensive—H. Upmann 180th Anniversary Toro (6 x 50) that will only be sold in humidors. Each humidor will come with 50 toros and carries a price tag of $1,500. There are just 180 humidors being made.

A representative from Altadis U.S.A. said a press release would be issued to other outlets on Wednesday.

At 23, Herman Upmann left his native Germany to work at an import/export company in the New World, eventually landing in Cuba. In 1844, he purchased a cigar factory in Havana, which not only grew to be one of the largest in the world but also was credited with being the first factory to affix labels to individual cigars, or what we would now call cigar bands.

Update (March 20, 2024) — A press release, including images, was released today, with those images added to the story.