Tag Archives: general cigars

by | November 6, 2011 · 9:19 am

A Bunch of Cigars, A Shop Visit, and A Contest!

After a busy few weeks of chronicling my trip to General Cigar Dominicana, it’s time to try to get back into a normal routine. I haven’t smoked too many cigars since my return.  When I got back I had a terrible cold, so I didn’t waste too many cigars, and the ones that I optimistically tried tasted pretty bad.  I kept it to cigars that I knew pretty well to gauge my taste buds.  After a week or so, I was pretty well back to being able to enjoy a cigar.

 

One of the first cigars I had was a sample from the IPCPR show.  I ended up with a bunch of cigars from Brun Del Re, a cigar maker from Costa Rica.  This was a cigar from their Don Corazza line, which is a cigar made from Dominican and Nicaraguan tobaccos.  The size was a 4″ x 60 which isn’t listed on their website.  The cigar started with a nice, unique flavor, which turned a bit sour in the second half.  I have a robusto in this line yet, as well as robustos in three or four of the other lines.  Unfortunately, I have some pre-conceived notions about show samples from companies like this.  It’s not fair, I know, but there have been so many cigars I’ve smoked in the past that have just been “same old, same old”, and failed to impress. These are nice looking sticks and I’ll certainly smoke them with an open mind.  I may not get to the rest of the samples until spring, as I smoke fewer cigars in the colder weather, and tend to stronger ones.

 

I enjoyed a Monte Pascoal Robusto as well last week, courtesy of Wes Gensel, of Monte Pascoal cigars.  This is a Brazilian puro, was awarded the best Brazilian cigar by Cigar Journal Magazine at their awards ceremony last July in Vegas, and is a very nice smoke.  Perfectly constructed and a pretty cigar with a nice flavor.    This is the first larger vitola I’ve smoked and I actually liked it better than the petite corona. On the full side of medium, this is a cigar you should try if you get a chance.

 

Last weekend we had an unusual October snowstorm, which dumped about 4 inches of wet snow on our area.  We were fortunate to not lose power as many in the area did, nor did we have any limbs down on our property.  I took my usual Saturday walk with a Cuban Crafters Powerhouse.  I chose this because it was a cold and nasty day and I wanted something that would cut through the crappy weather.  I mentioned somewhere that if I’m going to have my cigar get wet while I’m smoking it, I prefer it’s on a 90 degree day in a pool.  As rotten as the weather was, this strong cigar was quite enjoyable.  Any cigar that can hold up to wet snow and still provide a satisfying experience must be OK.  This is a 6″ x 54 pigtailed toro that has a Nicaraguan Ligero binder, which strikes me as unusual.  This is probably the first Cuban Crafters branded cigar I’ve really liked, but certainly not the first from Tabacalera Estili and Don Kiki Berger.

 

Halloween is always a traditional stogie night for me, and this year I opted for one of the coronas that I blended at Cigar Safari.  The first one of these I smoked was at the 3 month mark, and it was spectacular.  This one, while really good, was not as good as the first.  I suppose as these age they will certainly change, I’m hoping that they will get better rather than worse.  I shared one of these with my son yesterday and he enjoyed it.  Seven left.

 

My mid-week walk got off to a late start so I stuck with a shorter smoke.  A Gran Habano Habano #3 that was sent to my by one of my readers, Lloyd Ladrillono.  I’ve been seeing these in catalogs, and they had a really interesting booth at the trade show which I never managed to visit, and the cigars look great and seem to be priced well.  Lloyd was kind enough to share these with me and I appreciate it.  I really enjoyed this robusto, it had a sweetness that I like a lot.  This cigar hit me just right, it worked the way it should and tasted great.

 

I finished off the work week with a Murcielago Toro Grande which I bought at the Delaware Cigar Festival from Eddie Ortega. I like Eddie a lot, and I like the Murcielago more.  The San Andreas maduro wrapper is beautiful and delicious.  This one went a little sour at the band, but I think some humidor time will solve that problem.  If I can keep my hands off the couple I have left, I’ll see if that’s the case, but this is a perfect cold weather cigar for me.

 

Saturday I took a drive to Pottstown, Pa. and paid a visit to Cole’s Tobacco.  My wife had seen a picture of the store on one of the local radio station’s websites and did some research which led us to the visit.  They have been there for a century and it’s the first I’d heard of it.  In addition to a reasonable sized walk in humidor, they sell roll-your-own tobacco, candy, all kinds of stuff like an old fashioned news stand.  They had the largest selection of Lars Tetens cigars I’ve seen in 15 years, we picked up a bottle of Lars’ Steak Sauce for the heck of it, I certainly wasn’t going to smoke any of his cigars!  Anyway I walked out with a couple of Kristoffs that I hadn’t seen before, and had a nice chat with the proprietor, a young guy named Courtney.  No lounge that I saw, but not a bad place to get some cigars if you find yourself in downtown Pottstown, PA.

 

To wrap the week up I smoked a Oja Anniversary perfecto on my Saturday walk.  This is a semi-box pressed cigar with a Brazilian Samba wrapper that is rustic and oily.  It has a very dark, rich flavor and burned well, despite it’s rough appearance.  This was a sample sent to me by Luis Garcia, the brand owner.  This is one of the cigars made by Kiki Berger in Nicaragua that I alluded to earlier that I really like, the whole line is good, but this anniversary edition is really nice. It commemorates the brand’s first anniversary, which is a little odd, but the cigar works, so who cares?

 

I haven’t had a contest in a while, so I have a Drew Estate cap and a Liga Privada cutter to give away this time.  I might as well throw in a Stogieboys.com Cigar Journal along with it as well as a C-Gars Ltd. ring gauge card. I can’t be trusted NOT to include a cigar or two in a prize package. Leave a comment for a chance to win, and a Tweet with a link to this page (mentioning @cigarcraig so I see it) will get you an extra entry.  I’ll draw a name at random next Sunday, November 13, 2011.  Good luck!

 

That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | November 2, 2011 · 9:08 pm

General Cigar Domincana Trip Report: Final Day: Bunching, Box Factory, Wrapping/Packing

Wednesday brought another early wake-up, another terrific breakfast at the hotel buffet, and another bus ride to the General Cigar Dominicana factory.  Today we would have cigar making lessons and tour the box manufacturing facility.  Videos of my attempts are available on my previous entry.

 

I admit to having some apprehension about the hands-on aspects of this part of the trip.  It’s something I’ve looked forward to trying, knowing full well that my manual dexterity is pretty terrible.  We were each provided with a mentor, trainer, teacher.  In my case, it was a gentleman named Danny, who was a supervisor.  As I speak no Spanish and he spoke no English, this was going to be interesting.  We began with the Leiberman machine, and building the bunch.  Each leaf is rolled individually, and each leaf is placed in a specific order in the hand, with the ligero placed in the middle.  I had a 4 leaf blend, with one of the leaves being a half.  Once the leaves are placed in the hand, they are obviously too long for the 5½ x 42 coronas we were rolling, so you tear off the bottom parts and place them back in the bunch, carefully distributing these parts through the bunch.  Once that’s all accomplished, it’s time to put the bunch into the binder leaf and roll it using the Leiberman.  Next comes a bit of pectin on the end to hold it all together and a twist, then it gets shoved into the mold. I screwed this up a few times and Danny bailed me out, deftly redistributing my filler leaves.  We made 20 cigars.

 

While our cigars were spending some time in the press, we went to the box factory.  This incredible place was a wood shop, where they took slabs of wood and ripped it, planed it, cut it to various sizes.  Think of the number of brands that General Cigar makes, then consider the line extensions, then each size.  One quickly reaches the conclusion that there are a whole bunch of different boxes to make!  Then there’s dress boxes, lacquered boxes, all different kinds of boxes, even the semi-circle boxes for the La Gloria Artesanos Obilescos.  They also make boxes for others, we saw Guillermo Leon Signature boxes as well as E.P. Carillo boxes (including one for a cigar we hadn’t yet heard of, “Dark Rituals”.  Once the boxes are made, they have to be decorated.  Some boxes are paper-wrapped, which they were doing in a “Lean Manufacturing” cell method, where each person completed one step and passed the box to the next person in line.  Henry Ford pioneered this method of manufacture and the Japanese auto industry perfected it.  Other boxes are stained and lacquered and decorated with silk screening or foil printing. They have old printing presses and boxes of type, very old school but quite efficient.  They produce some really beautiful boxes, it was quite an amazing operation.

 

Once we were done being amazed once again by the sheer scope of the operation, it was time to do the most difficult thing ever, wrapping our cigars.  As we were making Macanudo cigars, we were using a Connecticut Shade wrapper.  In my self-deprecating way, I viewed this exercise as a fine way to turn excellent raw materials into crap, at least in my case.  If my blend wasn’t a complete abomination and assault on the senses, the possibility of me rolling a functional cigar was remote at best.  Again, Danny was my mentor, and he really knew what he was doing.  I struggled with trimming the leaf to the right size, he jumped in to make corrections.  I never was able to properly trim the “flag” that forms the perfectly rounded head of the cigar, and actually lost the cap, when I successfully punched one out of the leaf, several times,  I thought I had gotten it glued on properly, only to find it on my finger. Think of some delicate task, like threading a needle, or putting a watch together, and do it with mittens on, that’s how I felt trying to wrap my cigars.  The military has a phase involving a monkey and a football, that’s how I felt.  I feel safe saying that I think we were all pretty humbled by the experience.

 

Once we were finished and properly fed, we were escorted to the packaging area where we banded our cigars, We placed Macanudo bands on ten of our cigars, and bands with our names on the remaining cigars. The ones with our names would be smoked by the executives and the blending experts and one would be selected as the best in the group, based on the blend, construction, draw and appearance.  I certainly would not have a horse in this race!  Once the cigars were banded, we put them in cello, another seemingly simple task that, upon doing it, one wonders how these women can do it so quickly.  Then our ten cigars went into a Macanudo box, got a seal and were wrapped in cello.  The company took a whole lot of people away from their jobs to try to show us poor schlubs how hard their jobs are, and they succeeded!

 

On the way out we stopped in the El Credito area and watched the one pair of rollers making the La Gloria Cubana Artesanos De Obelisco.  It was amazing to watch, they had special molds made just for this shape and it’s very hard to roll.  Here’s a little video of the pair doing their thing:

 

httpv://youtu.be/mBVAhl14umo

 

Some of us went sight-seeing where we visited the Centro Leon museum which had one floor of historical and cultural artifacts, and the second floor was made up of art collected by Eduardo Leon Jimenes, who many will recognize in association with La Aurora/Leon Jimenez.  They had cigars in the gift shop, guess what kind?  We also paid a visit to the Monument to the Heroes of the Restoration which has a wonderful view of Santiago.

 

The day wrapped up with a sumptuous meal at the Camp David Ranch.  Again we were able to hob-nob with all of the executives of GCD.  It was great to be able to talk candidly with these new friends, as well as spending some time with others in our group.  The award for the best cigar went to Stephen Boyajian, with yours truly miraculously pulling down and honorable mention for the best construction (thanks to Danny!). We were each presented with our box of ten cigars of our own blend and rolling, as well as a commemorative box with each of our names printed on it.  It was the perfect end to a fantastic trip.  I will forever be amazed by all of the time and effort that goes into making something that we burn in an hour or so, and am grateful to everyone at General Cigar for the opportunity, and to my fellow bloggers for their fraternity (that’s a fancy way to say Bro!).  I smoked a bunch of cigars that I hadn’t smoked in a while, and they were excellent.  I found myself smoking Macanudo Maduros and enjoying the heck out of them, as well as regular old Partagas.  No one should think that because they are so big that they don’t have the same passion for the product that smaller producers have.

 

I’ve certainly typed enough here, yet I feel like I’ve left so much out.  I’ll sprinkle in videos and photos over the coming months as I go through and edit them into something meaningful.

 

That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | October 30, 2011 · 9:32 pm

General Cigar Domincana Trip Report: Final Day, Videos of Bunching and Rolling

I’ll admit it up front, this is a stall as I haven’t had time to write the full “Day 3” article.  So I’m posting a couple of videos of my feeble attempts at cigar rolling.  First we have bunching. Please note that it took me two minutes to make one bunch, a rate at which I would make no money and would be promptly re-asigned to sweeping the floors or something.  If it weren’t for the Leiberman machine, this would have been even more disasterous. Honestly, it takes years to become profficient at this, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have even passed the dexterity test.

 

 

Next came the seemongly simple, yet highly complicated task of applying the wrappper. Where the binder was a Mexican leaf, we were using Conecticut shade for the wrapper in the classic Macanudo style.  It remains to be seen whether my blend and rolling is worthy of the Macanudo name, I somehow think not!

 

 

As you can see, this is not something that one gets in a morning, or a week, or month….it takes years.  I managed to master trimming the cigar with the cutter, but that was about it.  Something to think about the next time you enjoy a fine cigar!

 

Stay tuned for the wrap-up later in the week,

Until then,

CigarCraig

 

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by | October 26, 2011 · 8:15 pm

General Cigar Domincana Trip Report: The Factory and Farm

We awoke to another beautiful Santiago morning. Breakfast again at the hotel (another ham and cheese omelet with plenty of fresh fruit, bacon and black coffee). Today we would visit the long filler processing areas, the rolling galleries and the farm. I have been remiss, I have failed to list my fellow attendees. They were (alphabetically, as nature intended): Anthony of CigarBrief, Barry of ACigarSmoker, Ben of NiceTightAsh, Dan of CigarExplorer, Doc of StogieFresh, David of TikiBarOnline, Justin of AshReport, Patrick of StogieGuys, Patrick Lagreid of Examiner, Skip of HavaCigarShop, Stephen of TheCigarNetwork, Tony of 365Cigars, Tony of CasasFumando & Bryan of Cigarobsession. It was a great pleasure to have been able to spend time with each of these gentlemen, and was as important to the experience as the experience itself.

 

We loaded up the bus and headed to visit the long filler processing facility near by. We were greeted by Francisco “Don Quico” Hernandez, the Director of Tobacco Growing and Long Filler Processing. Here were got an introduction to the tobacco plant, planting, growing, harvesting…passed around some more leaves and fumas to experience the difference between leaves from various places on the plant. This is also where I learned that Seco in the DR, is Viso in Nicaragua, a piece of information I could have used at the blending session (seriously, it probably wouldn’t have mattered…). Seco is the leaf that is largely responsible for nice rich flavor, in Nicaragua, Seco is the leaf that is largely responsible for combustion, which they call Volado in the DR. Ligero is still Ligero and is very strong when smoked by itself early in the morning! I’ve meandered….

 

Our next stop was to the de-stemming operations. We had seen the previous day how they had machines de-stemming wrapper leaves. This is apparently more precise and results in less waste with the expensive wrappers, but the process for the long filler is done manually. Seemingly hundreds of women were working with piles and piles of leaves. Again, I am struck with the sheer scope of the operation. Stripping the stem out of the leaves leads to further sorting and stacking and flattering. We saw them working with leaves from 2003, which, once again, gives some idea of the planning and inventory that is involved in the cigar making process. Stack after stack of long filler leaves from the 203 crop in various stages of processing. It was quite the sight to see. At the end of the process the leaves are separated and sorted again and packed in boxes to be taken to the factory for rolling. Once again, everything is meticulously documented at every stage.

 

Back at the factory, Franciso Rodriguez, the General Manager, took us for a tour of the manufacturing floor. There we saw where a gentleman (who has worked there for 30 years or so, this is not uncommon) made up the boxes of leaves for each specific blend. He weighs out enough leaves for the production run, and places them in segmented boxes, three or four different leaves in the correct proportions. These boxes then go to the rolling team, in some cases there’s one buncher working with two rollers, and in other cases they use a two person team. The Lieberman machine makes the three person team possible, a buncher can easily keep up with the two rollers with the assistance of the machine (it’s less mechanical than it sounds, as we will find out first hand on day 3!) Again, the scope is amazing as there are seemingly hundreds of people making cigars here. We also see the “Drawmaster” draw testing machines, where every bunch is checked. There are also additional quality control checks along the way, weighing, and machines that test using pressure to make sure the cigar is properly constructed. It’s no wonder that the “dud” rate is so low among Macanudo, Partagas, etc. We also saw some of the small cigar manufacture, where machined were cranking our Macanudo Ascots and similar little cigars by the thousands, as well as some machine made larger cigars. I got a little sentimental when I saw them making the very first cigars I bought by the box, TinderBox Private Stock, which I got to hand out when my son, Corey, was born over 22 years ago!

 

Next on the agenda was a trip to Mao, where the tobacco plantations are located. This is 480 acres of tobacco fields. Since it’s early in the growing season, we witnessed seeds being planted, the trays being put in huge greenhouses where they are carefully tended and watered. Again, fastidious records are kept on every aspect of the young cigar tree’s life. Eventually, the strongest seedlings are taken to the fields and planted in perfect rows. Sometime over the next 3 or 4 months these tiny plants will be 5 or 6 feet tall and they will start harvesting. We met up again with Don Quico, who clearly loves these fields. Once again, the greatest of care is taken in the planting and tending of what may be cigars we’ll smoke in 2020! An odd thing happened at this point, it was bright and sunny, but it began to rain like crazy! I suppose this is a normal occurrence the tropics, but it’s unusual for me. This was our cue to board the bus and drive a short distance to a large gazebo which the company maintains to entertain groups such as ours. We relaxed in rocking chairs overlooking the valley, enjoying various libations (several top shelf liquors I suppose, I drink Coke straight!), and they even roasted coffee right there. JhonysPhoto courtesy Doc Diaz Diaz passed around a 3 pack of numbered cigars that he wanted feedback on, so many of us fired them up as we waited for dinner. I usually smoke for the pure enjoyment of it, but in this instance I took some notes as I smoked the cigars. I would have liked to have given the first sample my full attention, as it was the best. I correctly guessed that it had the same wrapper as the Partagas Black, one of the only times on the trip I was right about anything.

 

Dinner was, once again, sumptuous, and everyone feasted. Dan Carr, President of General Cigar, joined us again and it was nice to be able to sit around talking with him and his executive staff, although we all missed Benji Menendez, Rick Rodriguez and Michael Giannini as they had left earlier. After a very entertaining ride back to the hotel, which will be left to others to relate, or not, we met up again at the pool for cigars, etc. It was a long day filled once again with a TON of information, much more than I was able to relate here. I hung for one last cigar and finally excused myself and retired. Wednesday was coming on quickly, and we had another full day planned, which I’ll save for the next installment.

 

Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | October 23, 2011 · 4:40 pm

General Cigar Domincana Trip Report: Introduction and Blending Exercise

Time for some details!  Last week, accompanied by 14 fellow bloggers and all around cigar fiends, I had the distinct pleasure of touring the General Cigar Company‘s Santiago, Dominican Republic facilities.  Most of us converged on Sunday at the Miami Airport, as well as Michael Giannini, Yuri Guillen and Rick Rodriguez. Those of us who had met previously greeted one another and those of us who had not met made introductions. Upon our arrival in Santiago, Victoria McKee Jaworski, Director of Public Relations for GC, met us at the gate and shepherded us to a private lounge while our checked bags were retrieved, then filed smoothly through immigration. We got a firsthand look at the mayhem of driving in the DR, as a couple of young men on what appeared to be Honda Cub mopeds, or knock offs, with no lights, helmets or anything were literally run over by an SUV trying to pass our bus. Welcome to Domincan Republic! Leave the driving to the professionals! Ironically, Micheal Giannini had just been telling us about how the local law enforcement handles such incidents, they just take everyone to jail. We arrived at the Hodelpa Gran Almirante Hotel and were already checked in and there was even a gift bag in the room waiting for us. We quickly met up at the pool bar for cigars, beverages and snacks, and got to meet Benji Menendez and hang out with the group for a while. Already this was a great day!

 

Monday started with a fine breakfast in the hotel, followed by a presentation at the factory where we met Jhonys Diaz, the VP of Operations and his staff. They presented us with a slide show while we had coffee and cigars. The presentation touched upon every aspect of the operation, from seed to box, as well as the social programs they provide for the people. One really gets the feeling of family there, it’s quite amazing.

 

After the presentation, we moved through the factory to our first exercise, blending. Arranged on tables were about 15 piles of leaves, with bags of “fumas” in front of each. The fumas were small cigars of each single leaf. The idea was to smoke each one to get the flavor, then try to determine which ones would taste good together. This activity will burn up your tongue! Whoever suggested starting with the Ligero is an evil bastard! Like most things we’d see over the course of the trip, this is not an easy thing. The next step was to choose a couple tobaccos and have them rolled into another fuma, which we smoked, when that was a big mistake and tasted terrible, you made another. Of course, Michael, Benji, Rick, Yuri etc, were on hand to guide us. I have yet to try mine, and I have rather low expectations, no fault of the materials or guidance.

 

After the blending session it was lunch time. We were served a lovely buffet of Dominican fare (loved the rice and bacon!) in the conference room, along with coffee and cigars. We all relaxed in the air conditioning and reflected upon the difficulty of the blending exercise. By the way, it sometimes takes a year of trial and error to come up with a blend for a new cigar, so we shouldn’t feel too bad. Still, when one has the opportunity to actually play with different leaves like that it is a special event.

 

After lunch we were handed over to Edmundo Garcia, the Tobacco Operations Manager. He took us to one of the warehouses where the bales of tobacco are stored. This is another area where it’s amazing how they track everything with precision. Every bale is marked with the variety, size, color, etc, and kept in the climate controlled warehouse. They actually have tobacco beetle traps all over the place so they can react quickly if beetles are detected. Skip Martin (@chiefhava) was trying to weasel bales the whole time we were there, but he did ask some very good questions along the way, ones I wouldn’t have thought to ask.

 

Next we moved to one of the areas where they condition the leaves and hang them to rehumidify them. Then we saw pilons, or huge stacks of the leaves where the leaves ferment.  There is a dizzying number of steps in the process, sorting, re-sorting, shaking, stacking, re-stacking.  Each step is vital to the proper processing of the leaves and is carefully documented along the way.  If you think the cigar your smoking is a simple pleasure, and that cigars are expensive, you have to see it first hand to know how many people and how much time is involved.  The tobacco they were sorting to go into the production area was from 2003, to give an example of the time the tobacco spends in aging for a premium cigar.

 

After a very long day at the factory, having worked on blending, having toured several aspects of the manufacturing process, a weary group returned to the hotel, then went to a very nice Italian restaurant for a sumptuous feast, and another chance to enjoy one another’s company.  Of course, we capped off the night with more cigars by the pool, and eventually retired to rest up for another action packed day.  Throughout the day we were fed a delicious diet of Macanudo, Partagas, La Gloria Cubana and Cohiba cigars.  Sometimes we dismiss these cigars as pedestrian, however I’ve mentioned before, and it came up among the group, that these are fine cigars, and when you’ve seen all that goes into making them, you change your thought process a bit.  Personally, I’ve never strayed too far from the “Classics”, but still returned to some old favorites.

 

Watch for Day Two, coming soon!  That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

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