Original Creator of Iconic Cigars

EllenJ

Does anyone know who the actual blender(s) was who's responsible for, like, our iconic non-Cuban RyJ, or Macanudo, or Montecristo? I've read that Fernando Palicio was the Cuban maker of Punch, and he sold the brand to Llaneza and Blumenthal, but they were cigar merchants, like Davidoff, not blenders like Kelner. So who actually "invented" the Punch that Americans know today? and the others? Are any of them still alive? I think their names should be as familiar to us as Henke, or Fernandez, or Bueso, or Fortes, Eiroa... you get the picture. Zman (Tommy Zarzecki) wrote a great article for Cigar Advisor a couple years ago that touched on it; can anyone add to that? 

Yakster

I don't know this, I'm pretty rocky on the history of the non-Cuban cigars using the names of iconic Cuban cigars. I smoke mostly non-iconic non-Cuban cigars, or CCs.

0patience

This is what I found.

The Cuban Romeo y Julieta brand formerly began in Cuba in 1875 by two men, Inocencio Alvarez and Manin Garcia.

The Punch marque of cigars was initially registered by a German man in 1840, named Stockmann. Stockmann named the cigars after a popular European puppet, Mr. Punch. Many people believe the cigar was named for the Punch magazine, but that wasn't created until a year after the cigars were introduced