The cigars are manufactured by Habanos S.A., the state-owned tobacco company in Cuba, and Altadis in La Romana, Dominican Republic.

The factory, located at 85 San Miguel Street, Havana, began producing cigars under the H. Upmann brand in 1844.

[4] At the outbreak of World War I, Hermann and Albert Upmann used their business interests in Cuba and the US to conceal their operation of a German intelligence network.

[5] The H. Upmann bank building on Calle Mercaderes was regularly used as a stopover point by German agents traveling between Mexico and Europe.

[5] After the Cuban government declared war on Germany on 7 April 1917, the H. Upmann bank was closed for thirty consecutive months.

[6][7] Although Upmann received a settlement from the U.S. Alien Property Custodian in March 1920, the amount left over after payment of attorney fees and expenses proved insufficient to cover the bank's other expenses, such as paying employee salaries and maintenance costs incurred during the period of the bank's closure by the Cuban government.

[15] Both brothers eventually relinquished their personal balances and claims with the firm for the benefit of creditors, and fraud charges were dropped against Albert Upmann, who later moved to the USA.

Menéndez y Ciz continued production of H. Upmann cigars until the nationalization of the tobacco industry after the Cuban Revolution on 15 September 1960.

[20] The night before US President John F. Kennedy signed the Cuban embargo, he had aide Pierre Salinger procure every box he could gather from Washington, D.C. tobacconists, totalling 1,200 cigars.

[21] After the revolution, Menéndez and García moved the brand first to the Canary Islands, then the Dominican Republic, where production continues under the ownership of Imperial Tobacco.

Cuban-produced H. Upmann cigars are produced in Havana for the Cuban state-owned organization Habanos SA (formerly Cubatabaco).