Table of Contents
The Trip
Hi {{First_Name | Friend}}, I hope this story helps you feel inspired to travel to do something you love.
This opportunity came to fruition last minute and I was ever thankful to be included. Two of my acquaintances were headed to Nicaragua to meet with their blender for a cigar line they have and they invited my best friend Nate and I to join them for fun. I also speak Spanish and it came very much in handy as I became the translator for the whole trip. It had been years since I had returned to Central America, so I was very excited to return. On top of that, it was a trip to cigar/tobacco heaven in Nicaragua with my best friend who is also a cigar aficionado and runs a lounge in East Nashville, TN called The Smokers Abbey.
I have been a cigar smoker for about 13 years and its become something that not only helps me relax but helps me break the ice if I am ever sitting with a stranger. I make it a habit to always have a few cigars on me so if I meet someone who wants to sit and chat or who simply likes cigars I can share with them.
After visiting Nicaragua and visiting factories and farms, my appreciation and awe for the process of creating tobacco for cigars grew tenfold. One of the factory owners stated that there are over 500 steps in the process in which a human hand touches or is involved from seed to smoking. That is incredible to me.
If its not obvious, my best friend and I dream of opening our own cigar lounge at some point in the future. I just wanna be a 90yr old man slinging cigars and sharing the joy of them with people.
My best friend Nate and I smoking the cigars we just hand rolled ourselves. Normally you would not smoke them so soon, but it was just for the experience of it.
My cliche tobacco field picture. I love all things that grow, so I felt a double dose of love in these fields.
The truck was full so I rode in the bed the entire week. It was nostalgic for me because that was my favorite way to ride to the city with my friends when I was younger and lived in Honduras.
One tobacco brand called Plasencia really embodied what it means to create an amazing work space for their employees. From incredible attention to detail in the workspace itself to building schools at every factory/farm so that the employees children can go to school (ages 1-5) for little to no cost.
Their common area for employees to enjoy lunch
The school for kids. they learn english, history, music, emotional growth, growing garden plants, and many other topics
The 1-2 yr old class room
The top 5 favorite cigars in no particular order:
RomaCraft Neanderthal HN
Foundation Cigars Menelik petite robusto
Foundation Olmec Claro Toro
Plasencia Alma de Fuego Concepcion
Black Label Viaticum 6×48
My favorite drinks to pair with a cigar:
A good tawny port
Laphroaig quarter cask scotch
Uncle Nearest 1884 bourbon
Diet Dr. Pepper
Decaffeinated Coffee
Photo Gallery
Gustavo showing us the stretch on a leaf used as a wrapper for a cigar
I just like this picture because it is candid and you can see the care Gustavos hand has over the product he carefully grows and produces.
A freshly picked tobacco leaf on a pile of already fermented and aged tobacco.
Fermenting the tobacco and rotating it. They rotate every single piece by hand multiple times throughout the fermentation process. This pile of tobacco is called a Pilón.
Our factory guide Julian immersing himself in smelling 13 year old aged tobacco. It smelled heavenly
Rollers and v at the Plasencia factory. Each person hand rolls about 250-300 cigars a day. Incredible.
Inside the humidor at Aganorsa Cigars
Inside the humidor at Plasencia Cigars
Inside the humidor at Oveja Negra (Black Label) Cigars
Fresh tobacco placed in a very humid barn to begin their curing process.
Tobacco after 11 days curing.
Rows stacked on rows, all the way to the top of the barn.
This sign is made entirely of cigars.
My Favorite Quotes:
"While smoking a cigar, we are in the presence of eternity. The tobacco reminds us of the earth, from which it and we came. As with ourselves, the life of some cigars are short, while others last a while longer, but in the end all are consumed. But the smoke, ah, the smoke! The smoke drifts gently heavenward on its quest to combine with the great eternal oneness." -Prince Sined Yar Maharg
". . . for the man, or woman, who works in tobacco, a cigar is a gift in the form of a skillfully created roll of the plant he has struggled to cultivate and produce." -Roger Ralphs
"Allah made tobacco grow to put a smile on the faces of men." -An old Turkish proverb
Along with my favorite quotes, I wanted to share that I met a man named Gerardo Ramos in Nicaragua who has his own little tobacco factory. He was the kindest man. His father, Arsenio Ramos, was a legend in the industry and was a master blender before he passed away. Arsenio used to write poems and Gerardo shared three with us with rough translations and I wanted to in turn share with you.
This is Gerardo Ramos and a painting he did of his father Arsenio behind him.
The makeup of some of my favorite cigars
Name | Fillers | Binder | Wrapper |
|---|---|---|---|
RomaCraft Neanderthal HN | Fillers from Condega, Esteli, Jalapa, the Pueblo Valley, and Pennsylvania Double Ligero | Conneticut Broadleaf | Mexican San Andres |
Foundation Cigars Menelik petite robusto | Condega Esteli, Jalapa | Nicaraguan Corojo 99 | Mexican San Andres |
Foundation Olmec Claro Toro | Esteli, Jalapa | Nicaraguan | Mexican San Andres |
Plasencia Alma de Fuego Concepcion | Nicaragua | Nicaragua (Ometepe) | Nicaragua (Ometepe) |
Black Label Viaticum 6×48 | Honduras, Nicaragua | Honduran Habano | Ecuador Maduro |
Poll
Do you smoke cigars?
This next section is to outline our referral program!
If you made it this far, you get a treat. This video below is of a sweet man named Rolando who is a roller and buncher and he walks through the process and explains how to do it.
