From Havana to Monte-Carlo: The Story Behind Monaco's First Ever Cuban Cigar

There are places in the world that seem to exist outside ordinary time. Monaco is one of them a principality of 2.02 square kilometres where the Casino de Monte-Carlo has stood since 1863, where Formula 1 cars race through streets lined with superyachts, and where the very concept of luxury has been refined, over more than a century, into something approaching a philosophy.

It is, then, perhaps surprising that it took until 2026 for Monaco to receive its first ever Regional Edition Cuban cigar.

The wait is over. The Ramon Allones Casino Edición Regional Monaco is here and for anyone who understands both what Monaco represents and what a Regional Edition Cuban cigar means to a serious collector, this is one of the most significant tobacco releases of the year.

What Is a Regional Edition Cuban Cigar?

Before entering the story of the Casino, it is worth understanding what makes a Regional Edition extraordinary in the world of Cuban cigars.

Habanos S.A.  the Cuban state entity that controls the production and distribution of all authentic Cuban cigars created the Regional Edition programme to allow exclusive, limited-production cigars to be crafted for specific markets around the world. Each Regional Edition is produced in a unique vitola a size and shape that may never have been made before exclusively for a single country or territory, in a strictly limited quantity that will never be repeated.

The result is a cigar that is, by definition, irreplaceable. Once the numbered boxes are gone, they are gone. The only way to smoke one after the initial release is to find a collector willing to part with theirs at a price that will almost certainly exceed the original.

Ramon Allones is, by a considerable margin, the most prolific and beloved brand in the Regional Edition programme a full-strength Cuban brand with roots stretching back to between 1837 and 1845, producing bold, rich tobacco from Vuelta Abajo that has made it a favourite among serious aficionados for nearly two centuries. For Monaco to receive its first Regional Edition, and for that edition to carry the Ramon Allones name, is a combination that needed no further justification.

The Casino: A Cigar Named for an Icon

The name is not accidental. The Casino de Monte-Carlo is among the most recognisable buildings on eart the setting for more James Bond scenes than any other single location, and the image that comes to mind for almost anyone who hears the word Monaco. It is a building that has defined a particular idea of European elegance since the 19th century, and it lends its name to this cigar with a weight of association that no other Monaco landmark could quite match.

The Ramon Allones Casino measures 130mm in length with a ring gauge of 55 a vitola known within the Cuban naming system as Montesco, and a size that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has smoked a Romeo y Julieta Wide Churchill. It is a large robusto: substantial in the hand, generous in the smoke, and designed for the kind of unhurried evening that Monaco, at its best, makes possible.

The cigars are presented in boxes of 10, each individually numbered. Total production: 6,000 boxes  60,000 cigars in existence, exclusively for the Monegasque market. The price, as listed in the Journal de Monaco, the official publication that sets tobacco product prices in the Principality, is €65.90 per cigar.

This is not a cigar for an ordinary Tuesday. It is a cigar for an occasion that deserves to be remembered.

The Collaboration Behind the Release

The Ramon Allones Casino is the product of a collaboration between two institutions that know their market intimately.

Coprova is the exclusive distributor of Habanos cigars in France and Monaco a company with deep roots in the French and Monegasque cigar trade, and the entity responsible for bringing this Regional Edition to life. The Régie des Tabacs et Allumettes de Monaco the principality's official tobacco authority, directed by Philippe Gatti was the driving force behind Monaco's application for its first ever Regional Edition.

The release is now available in tobacconists across the principality. For collectors outside Monaco, the window to acquire a numbered box is narrow and narrowing further with each week that passes. It is the same logic of scarcity that drives the most significant collectible releases in any category: from the Macallan 1926 bottles that became multi-million dollar auction pieces to the Ramon Allones Casino itself objects whose value is inseparable from their impossibility of replication.

Monaco, Cuban Cigars, and the Art of the Private Moment

There is something entirely fitting about Monaco receiving a Cuban cigar of this calibre in 2026.

The principality has, in recent years, deepened its relationship with cigar culture in ways that go beyond the occasional after-dinner smoke. A new ultra-luxurious cigar lounge opened in Monaco last year a space designed for the kind of aficionado who approaches a cigar the way a wine collector approaches a grand cru: with knowledge, patience, and a genuine understanding of what is in the glass or in this case, between the fingers.

Monaco's position in the world of luxury is unique. It is a place where the ultra-wealthy do not merely visit  they live, year-round, surrounded by the same standard of excellence they apply to every other aspect of their lives. The restaurants where they dine are not the ones that appear in tourist guides. The superyachts anchored in Port Hercule each summer are not for charter by the week they are private vessels, maintained to a standard that most hotels cannot match. And the cigars they smoke, on the terraces of private residences overlooking the Mediterranean, are not from the duty-free shelf.

The Ramon Allones Casino fits precisely into this world. It is a cigar conceived for a market that understands rarity, appreciates provenance, and has the patience to wait for something genuinely worth smoking.

How to Find One

The Ramon Allones Casino Edición Regional Monaco is available exclusively through tobacconists in the Principality of Monaco. Given the limited production of 6,000 numbered boxes and the pace at which the release has been received by the Monegasque market, availability is not guaranteed.

For collectors and aficionados outside Monaco, the most direct route is through specialist Cuban cigar retailers who maintain relationships with Coprova and the Monegasque distribution network though at this stage, any remaining stock will carry a premium that reflects both the scarcity of the release and the significance of the occasion.

A numbered box of 10 Ramon Allones Casino cigars is, at €65.90 per cigar, an investment of under €660 at release price. For a first-ever Regional Edition from one of Cuba's most storied brands, produced in a quantity that will never be repeated, for a principality that has waited decades for its own Cuban cigar it is, by any serious collector's measure, a remarkable proposition.

A Final Note

The Casino de Monte-Carlo has stood for over 160 years as a symbol of what Monaco represents: the meeting point of elegance, risk, and the particular pleasure of being in the right place at the right time.

The Ramon Allones Casino 60,000 cigars, 6,000 numbered boxes, one principality captures something of that same spirit. It is a cigar for those who understand that the finest things are not available everywhere, are not available forever, and are worth pursuing precisely because of that.

Havana made it. Monte-Carlo inspired it. The rest is up to you.

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