NO 520 Industria Street may not sound like the most evocative or romantic of addresses, but, to cigar lovers the world over, it has the resonance of Tower Bridge, the Taj Mahal and la tour Eiffel. It is, of course, the home of Partagás or, at least, it was. Back in the middle of the 2010s, production moved to what had been the El Rey del Mundo factory when I first visited it, in a warren of streets in Central Havana near the Romeo y Julieta factory.
Although the building no longer made cigars, it continued to sell them at the sprawling cigar shop. However, in 2020, at the height of the covid pandemic, this, too, closed and has now reopened at a very convenient location in the old town, roughly equidistant from the Kempinski hotel and the famous Floridita, creating a perfect golden triangle of hospitality, cigars and cocktails.
The old building is still just about standing, across the street from the back door of the Cuban Capitol. If the Capitol is a gleaming edifice of bright stone, with a gilded cupola that seems to glow, however, the Partagás building looks at best dishevelled and at worst downright dangerous. When I drove past in February, even the black-market cigar vendors that used to cluster outside had relocated. Partagás is more than a building, no matter how historic, so I was reassured and happy to find that the 23rd festival of Havana cigars was devoted to the marque.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin March 29, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin March 29, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
