Mexicana

Earlier this weekend, at the local liquor store I was briefly distracted by a brandy or wine named ‘Caballero’ (can’t find on the Internets): I’m not sure if it was the brand name or the name of the drink itself, but, it reminded me of the other brand name of cigarettes made by a Dutch cigarettes manufacturer, then called ‘Sigarettenfabriek Ed. Laurens B.V’. The company was eventually bought out by British American Tobacco. Their site has a rather bland portion about the health risks of smoking and genetically modified tobacco (no).

Both my parents smoked: Originally, my mother smoked Caballero cigarettes I believe and then switched to ‘Belinda’ cigarettes, which, as you can tell, were cigarettes solely targeted to females. My mother eventually quit smoking (cold turkey I believe) and the images of “the mexican on his horse” cigarette packs slowly faded away from my memories and probably (as the brand doesn’t appear to exist anymore) from the minds of continental Europeans.