Category Archives: Trip Report

by CigarCraig | October 21, 2011 · 7:15 am

General Cigar Dominicana Trip – Day Three Photos and Summary

Day 3 was very busy. We received the tobacco for our blends, learned to bunch that tobacco and put it into molds, toured the box factory, wrapped our cigars then took a trip to the Centro Leon museum and the monument which inspired the La Gloria Cubana Obilesco.

The day wrapped up with dinner at Camp David Ranch with spectacular views of Santiago and delicious food and company. An awards ceremony of sorts ended the day with our own blend Macanudos presented to us, a special sampler commemorating the trip, a box of La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro and a certificate.

It was a fantastic trip, General Cigar really went out of their way to welcome us and show us every facet of the cigar production. We were provided with cigars to smoke along the way, and many of us became reacquainted with cigars we had forgotten about. I really enjoyed the Macanudo Maduros, Crü Royale and 1968, what they refer to as the yellow box Partagas and the Partagas Black, as well as the regular old La Gloria Cubana Wavell and the Retro. I’m sure it sounds like I’m “drinking he kool aid”, but General Cigar is a company that has it’s act together. They take care of their people, they make extremely high quality cigars that taste great, and care about what they are doing. Thank you to everyone involved for making my last 4 days a memorable experience, especially Victoria McKee Jaworski who did a terrific job setting this whole thing up.

That’s it for now, stay tuned for more detailed reports over the coming weeks!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

3 Comments

Filed under Trip Report

Tagged as cigar, cigars, Dominican Republic, general, general cigars, La Gloria Cubana, macanudo, Partagas, Santiago

by CigarCraig | October 19, 2011 · 7:30 am

General Cigar Dominicana Trip – Day Two Photos and Summary

Day two of out visit to General Cigar covered a lot of ground (so to speak). We visited the tobacco processing, rolling and packaging and growing.

We started with a visit to the filler processing facility, where we saw the stripping, sorting, and preparation for storage in the warehouse.

From there we toured the rolling galleries and all of the finishing operations. What strikes me besides the absolute enormity of the operation is the controls in place at every step. It’s no wonder that you rarely have a bad cigar from General. Every employee we were introduced to had been there for 10, 15, 30 years and loves what they do.

We finished the day with a tour of one of their farms from the seeds being planted to seedlings being planted in the fields. Again, plants as far the eye can see. It’s very early in the growing season so the fields are filled with tiny seedlings, I can only imagine how beautiful it will be in a few months when they are mature.

Following the tours we dined at a gazebo overlooking the valley, where we had an opportunity to hang around and chat with members of the management including el Jefe, Dan Carr. There was a little rain and lightning, and some bats, but no one noticed much. It was a terrific end to a long and informative day.

I’ve included some more photos of the day, once again, I’ll work on captioning them at a later date.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

2 Comments

Filed under Trip Report

Tagged as cigar, cigar rollers, cigars, farms, fields, general, general cigars, rollers

by CigarCraig | October 17, 2011 · 5:43 pm

General Cigar Dominicana Trip – Day One Photos and Summary

After a day of travel Sunday, we all gathered around the hotel pool for cigars and snacks. It was great getting to know a bunch of fellow bloggers/cigar maniacs as well as hanging out with Rick Rodreguez, Michael Giannini, Benji Menendez, Yuri Guillen and Victoria McKee . I called it a night shortly after midnight, although many continued on.

After a restful night’s sleep, we gathered and started our tour of the General Cigar operations. We were given a presentation and introduced to the management team, then we set off for a blending session. This was much more intensive and diverse than I’ve done before, and I’m sure I blended something spectacularly bad, no fault of the materials. We smoked a bunch of “fumas” made from single leaves, and then went through some blends of our choosing rolled into a fuma. I was pretty overwhelmed, but we shall see how it turns out with a binder and wrapper. We had a tour of the warehouses, sorting, stripping, fermenting, sorting again, etc. It’s incomprehensible the magnitude of the operation, and we haven’t even seen the half of it yet. Enjoy the photos and feel free to leave any questions in the comments, I will go back and add some captions as time allows. We have a pretty tight schedule of activities and my time is limited. I only count about 5 cigars smoked so far, but that doesn’t count the dozen or so fumas at the blending session. By the way, blending a cigar ain’t easy!

Many thanks to everyone for making this an unforgettable day!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

6 Comments

Filed under Trip Report

Tagged as cigar, cigars, Dominican Republic, factory, fermenting, Geneal Cigar, general, La Gloria Cubana, macanudo, Partagas, Santiago, tour, travel, warehouse

by CigarCraig | October 16, 2011 · 7:34 am

The Heartbreak Of A Damaged Liga Privada T52

First off, I’d like to welcome Oja Cigars, my latest site sponsor. Click on the ad on the right and try their cigars if you get the chance. Oja has four lines of cigars in several sizes, all made in Esteli. It’s no secret that these have become a favorite of mine over the last several months. Each line has a little something special to distinguish itself from the others. Thank you to Luis Garcia and Oja Cigars for the support!

As I was rummaging around the humidor picking out some cigars to pack for my trip, I noticed a Liga Privada T52 robusto that had a cracked wrapper. Imagine my horror. This particular cigar came from the Drew Estate Blogger Party in Vegas at the IPCPR show, so it had been through a lot in it’s life. Vegas isn’t kind to cigars. Anyway, once i find a damaged cigar in my humidor, it has to go. No question about it, it can’t continue to exist with the rest of it’s perfect brethren. Maybe I’m shallow, or bigoted. Certainly my CDO (that’s OCD in the correct, alphabetical order by the way!), but that’s just the way it is. So I smoked it. I peeled off the cap and used it as a bit of a band-aid of sorts, although the cap didn’t cover the entire crack, but it turned out OK. I was expecting it to explode when it heated up, but it didn’t. As usual, the T52 was a terrific cigar, despite the damage. It burned like a champ, didn’t explode, and, while not as enjoyable as a perfect cigar, it delivered in the flavor department and was very satisfying. Liga Privada, be it No.9, T52, or Serie Ünico, are exceptional cigars, one of the few cigars I consider worthy of the price-tag.

I’ve been alluding to my upcoming trip, and the day has come. This time tomorrow I’ll be waking up in Santiago, Dominican Republic, and getting ready for a 3 day tour of the General Cigar factories and fields. Stay tuned for updates along the way. I’ll be taking pictures and video along the way and will try to upload something interesting over the next couple days, dependent upon connectivity. Myself, and my 14 fellow bloggers will have a full schedule of educational activities and tours. I feel very fortunate to be able to have this experience and share it with my readers.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

3 Comments

Filed under Review, Trip Report

Tagged as cigar, cigars, dirty rat, Domincan Republic, drew estate, general, general cigars, IPCPR, La Gloria Cubana, liga privada, macanudo, Oja, Partagas, punch, Santiago, t52, travel

by CigarCraig | July 24, 2011 · 9:18 am

Las Vegas Trip – IPCPR Day Two – Monday July 18

Monday is the opening day of the IPCPR show and it starts with a breakfast meeting. The buffet is quite generous and the coffee was hot and in good supply. Oddly there were no ashtrays on the tables, and I didn’t see a lot of folks smoking. Plenty of time for that. Some of the highlights of the meeting were Joe Rowe’s retirement as Executive Director and William Spann being appointed his replacement as CEO. All of the important folks at the IPCPR were recognized and awards were given. The IPCPR does a lot in the way of lobbying to try to keep our beloved hobby from being crushed. Every chance you get, please visit the IPCPR website and use their tool to send a letter to your representatives. I’ve put a widget on the right sidebar that will take you right there. It’s especially important to contact them regarding FDA regulation and remind them that in addition to regulation crushing the cigar business in the US, closing small businesses, it will decimate the economies of the cigar producing countries who will turn to us for aid. This has been a public service announcement.

After the business portion of the meeting, the guest speaker was introduced. Ron White is a brand ambassador for Zino Platinum and entertained us with his humor. OK, I’m understating this as he was fricken hysterical. We got a 15 minute show which was packed with non-PC humor. He’s a funny, funny guy who loves cigars and is very passionate about them. He could be seen walking the show floor later in the day, and did a meet and greet at the Davidoff booth on the following day. It was a very cool breakfast.

Breakfast wrapped up and everyone gathered at the entrance to the exhibit hall waiting to enter. I quickly found out that “media” was allowed in ahead of the retailers so I set up next to Jerry Cruz of Stogie Review and took the very boring “stampede” video which I posted last week. It’s always quite impressive to see the waves of humanity entering the exhibit space, which, I might add, it enormous. I took a quick wander around the perimeter and spent the day talking to people and getting little videos which I will present to you throughout the coming months. The bigger booths seemed the busiest on day one, and there seemed to be a lot more people here than there were in New Orleans last year. Drew Estate‘s booth was packed for almost the entire 3 days I was at the show, and General Cigar, Alec Bradley, Davidoff, Oliva, Altadis, Perdomo, Fuente, to name a few, always seemed to be busy.

Today’s video is a brief chat with Bill Paley of La Palina Cigars.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbcUsEfafnI

By the way, I had a relaxing afternoon yesterday with my wife, an Oja Connecticut Destacado and a bottle of Reeds’s Ginger Beer in my in-laws pool. It was a wonderful way to beat the 100+ degree heat here in PA. I hope to get there today and repeat the experience.