Where The History Begins

In Miramar, a residential district of Havana, Cuba, lies a picturesque two-story mansion framed by towering palm trees. The grounds are immaculately manicured; the front steps laid with marble; the facade lined with columns; the many doors and windows cased with decorative exterior moulding. These details bespeak the opulence of the house, itself a symbol of the surrounding district's prosperous history.

Inside, in a foyer full of ambient light filtered through stained glass windows, a large, curving staircase fills the room. On one of the pale yellow walls, seemingly underscored by the stairs' wrapping banister, is a name written in bold, blocky letters – COHIBA.

This is El Laguito Cigar Factory, home of the original Cohiba, and the birthplace of the Lancero cigar.

El Laguito

Built in the 1920s, El Laguito was the former home of Alberto Casimiro Fowler Perilliat. Perilliat, a British citizen and a president of the North American Sugar Company, came from a wealthy business family that, according to Claudia Puszkar, writing for Cigarjournal, "owned a railroad company and a distillery, a rum factory, a brandy manufacture and maintained partial ownership of a bank and an airline."

At the time, Perilliat was a typical resident of Miramar, which hosted Havana's high society, including "sugar magnates, industrialists, executives, and US diplomats," according to Safie M. Gonzalez of the Havana Times. This upper class built gorgeous mansions in the area, "in the most modern architectural styles of the era: California Mission, Art Deco, Neocolonial, and Neoclassical."

Among these extravagant homes is El Laguito, named after a small lake on the mansion's grounds ("laguito" being a Spanish diminutive for "lago," or lake).

During the Revolution, Miramar, like so much of the country, underwent a totalizing restructuring. The mansion that would become El Laguito fell dormant, caught in a seismic moment of change.

The Legend of the Lancero

There are many iterations of this story, but they all go something like this:

After the Revolution, the personal bodyguard of Fidel Castro gave the Prime Minister a cigar rolled by Eduardo Rivera. Castro, so struck by the cigar and its unique shape, contacted Rivera to have him make more. That cigar was the prototype for what would become the Laguito No. 1, the first official Lancero, and Castro's personal favorite cigar.

Speaking to James Suckling in the Autumn '95 issue of Cigar Aficionado, Rivera said of the time:

"You understand that Fidel was the most threatened leader in the world, that there were a lot of assassination attempts against him, all the attempts made by the CIA. So, I was put in charge of making cigars for him. It was all very secretive."

For a while, Rivera made Castro's personal cigars in his home, but eventually began "working closely with one of Castro's secretaries, Celia Sanchez, to create an official brand for Castro."

In 1966, the brand was dubbed "Cohiba," named so for the Taíno – one of Cuba's indigenous peoples – word for "tobacco."

These Cohiba cigars were for Castro's personal consumption or given out as diplomatic gifts to various visiting and native dignitaries. A calling card of sorts, Cohiba cigars became a notorious flourish of Castro's and the Cuban government.

By 1969, with production fully ramped up, Cohiba partnered with other brands. Rivera says in Suckling's Cigar Aficionado piece: "Within a few years, we realized that we had enough production to commercialize something [...] So we contacted Zino Davidoff and asked him to discuss such a project."

This partnership led to the Lancero vitola leaving the island and spreading to an international stage, as Greggory Mottola of Cigar Aficionado writes:

"After Cohiba, the Cuban Davidoff was the first cigar brand to adopt the lancero size into its portfolio with the introduction of the Davidoff No. 1. When the Davidoff brand left Cuba for the Dominican Republic, it continued offering lancero shapes, and for years was one of the few non-Cuban cigars with a lancero as part of the brand."

The Lancero Today

Today, the Lancero, once a novel shape limited to Cuba and a select few, is a vitola favored by many discerning cigar connoisseurs – generally measuring 7.5" x 38. Our own Alan Britt, Customer Service Manager and cigar enthusiast, says of the vitola:

"I've always had a soft spot for the Lancero — it offers such a unique expression of the blend. The slimmer ring gauge really highlights the wrapper, where so much of the flavor lives. To me, it's like an espresso shot versus a cup of coffee — more concentrated and focused. I also love smaller ring gauges for their great combustion, and as I'm a bit of a cigar purist, I've always been drawn to those classic Cuban sizes. When a Lancero is done right, it's tough to beat."

Tyler Caldwell, our in-house Cigar Specialist, feels similarly:

"Lancero is the vitola that always stood out to me the most. There's an argument that a thinner ring gauge provides more flavor with the wrapper-to-filler ratio, leaning towards more wrapper. I do find thinner ring gauges provide more intensity of flavor. What's ultimately stood out the most to me about Lanceros, though, is the mouthfeel. Lanceros just feel more comfortable to smoke for me, as opposed to larger ring gauges."

As you can tell, we here at Smokingpipes are quite the fans of the Lancero, and have partnered with several large industry brands to deliver exclusive Lancero renditions of popular blends, including Blackbird's Flamingo cigar – their first Lancero – and most recently, ADVentura's Patapalo — the first Lancero in ADVentura's critically acclaimed Blue Eyed Jack's Revenge line.

Let us know in the comments what some of your favorite Lancero cigars are, and what blends you'd love to see in a Lancero vitola!

Bibliography

• Mottola, G. (2023, August 15). The love of lanceros. Cigar Aficionado.
• Puszkar, C. (2018, October 31). El Laguito – Havana's most beautiful cigar factory. Cigar Journal.
• Robinson, C. (2025, August 28). Rust and salt: The history of Miramar, Havana. Havana Times.
• Suckling, J. (2017, August 1). The Man Who Created Cohiba. Cigar Aficionado.