In 1831, 13-year-old Don José Gener y Batet immigrated from Spain to Cuba to work on his uncle's plantation in Vuelta Abajo. Twenty years later, he opened his own cigar factory in Havana and began producing his own line of cigars, La Escepción. In 1865, after purchasing one of the finest tobacco plantations in the Vuelta Abajo with profits from his factory, he registered a line of cigars called the Hoyo de Monterrey. Literally translated from Spanish to English as "Monterey Cave".