Tasting Notes

Once the cigars are aged in the marrying room, they are inspected and sorted by color. This is quite the task as there are roughly 60 different shades of brown. It’s a really big deal for not only the cigar maker, but also the cigar smoker, to open a box and see all...

There are 3 basic ways to make a cigar. Of course, there are variations here and there on each type and what is acceptable under each classification and also what each factory refers to them as. However, we’d be here for a few more weeks if we were to break them all...

After the leaves are properly re-hydrated through casing, the leaves that will be used for as a binder or wrapper go through a process to remove the central vein in each leaf. The left and right sides are kept separate, especially for wrapper leaves. There is a...

Our tobacco leaves have now completed the fermentation process and each leaf is separated, sorted, inspected, and graded. For instance, wrapper leaves are separated by color (i.e. Claro, Colorado, Maduro, Oscuro). Each type is packed together in bales made from bark...

Once our tobacco leaves have dried in the curing barns, they are shipped off to the packing houses. The leaves are once again sorted, this time by size, texture, and color. Once sorted the leaves are once again tied together with a strip of palm tree leaf. They are...

Alright, so our happy little tobacco plants have avoided the ailments we discussed last week and are growing nice and healthy. Remember how we talked about the plants being primed (leaves harvested) 2-4 leaves at a time? And that each plant can provide roughly 12-18...

Alright, our plants are still happily growing in their 45 day window in the tobacco fields. What could possibly go wrong? Well, actually quite a few things. However, we’re just going to take about the three most common: Blue Mold, Black Shank, Mosaic Virus and...

Now that we have our tobacco plants happily soaking up the sun and maturing, let’s talk a little more about the plant itself. To keep things simple, we’ll stick with the three basic leaves on a tobacco plant: Volado, Seco, and Ligero. Volado leaves grow on the very...

After roughly 45 days, the infant plants are evaluated. The strongest plants are then transplanted into the tobacco field at very precise intervals. A row is marked with string and a worker walks the line marking each spot with a stick. Depending on sun, water, and...

That fantastic masterpiece of tobacco engineering you have in your hand had to start somewhere, right? We’re going to take you back to the beginning of it all. You might even be a little surprised at how much work goes into creating that perfect cigar. The very first...