Casa De Montecristo Coming To Miami in 2016
Cigar manufacturer Altadis U.S.A. recently announced that its signature branded lounge, Casa De Montecristo, will be coming to Miami in 2016. A joint venture between Altadis and Prime Cigar, a Florida-based cigar bar and lounge, the new location will be called Casa De Montecristo by Prime Cigar & Whiskey Bar, and is expected to open for business in February of this year.
"We've had a good relationship with Altadis for years," said Ryan Leeds, who co-founded Prime Cigar in 2010 with associate Jason Reznik. The company partnered with Altadis in 2013, branding a Montecristo patio at its original location in Boca Raton, Florida. "So we decided if we were going to expand with a branded partner, we wanted it to be with Altadis."
Casa De Montecristo will be located at the newly constructed 1100 Millecento residential tower in the Brickell neighborhood of downtown Miami. The 4,700-square-foot space will include a walk-in humidor, fully stocked bar with an emphasis on whiskey, member and non-member lounges, and a "vintage collector's room" for purchasing rare and aged cigars.
"The collectors room will include interesting gems we've purchased from the backrooms of cigar factories," says Leeds. "[The cigars] were either part of a production run that was never released or were part of a limited release and we were able to buy the cigars that were left over."
The cigars will be sold mostly unbanded, informing customers only of the factory and year it was produced. Prime Cigar claims to be working with several cigar brands to procure these rare smokes.
Janelle Rosenfeld, vice president of marketing at Altadis, says the cigar manufacturer will likely contribute to the collector's room stock as well. "As the largest manufacturer of premium handmade cigars in the world, we have an extensive cedar room and vast stores of special aged tobaccos," she said.
Altadis U.S.A., maker of popular non-Cuban brands such as Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta and H. Upmann, has partnered with close to thirty cigar establishments across the United States on Casa De Montecristo lounges. The branded lounges carry an exclusive Casa de Montecristo cigar line, and Rosenfeld says a private label or small edition exclusively for the Miami location is certainly possible.
Casa De Montecristo by Prime Cigar & Whiskey Bar will be open to the public but will also offer membership options that include access to a locker, private lounge and advance purchase of cigars from the collector's room.
