Austin, TX (November 24, 2010) – Let’s face it, there are many bad cigar ads out there. Some are great, but overwhelmingly we find that cigar ads can be poorly thought out or victims of bad photo-shopping. To illustrate the point, Fumée Cigar Bar in Cedar Park, Tx, recently polled its customers to find the best and worst cigar ads of all time. The votes are in, and the unfortunate winners are being announced.

Customers overwhelmingly chose Di Fazio Cigars as the recipient of “Worst Cigar Ad of All Time”. The ad features a man in bed with a cigar band on his ring finger. The copy reads: “Another cigar lover is about to cheat on his favorite cigars.” Bob, of Cedar Park, Texas said: “This was too phallic- and not in the way I like.”

SEE OUR WORST AD WINNER HERE

Conversely, the winner of the “Best Ad of All Time” as elected by Fumée Cigar Bar customers was Don Diego. This ad has a similar setting as our worst ad- a person in bed- but this time it’s a woman. The copy reads “Don Diego was here.”

SEE OUR BEST AD WINNER HERE

“This experiment is a great case study. From this we learn that a simple change in an ad can make all the difference. And, that it’s important to know your audience.” Says Heather Haddad, owner of Fumée Cigar Bar. Her personal pick for worst ad was a poorly photo-shopped La Gloria Cubana ad.

SEE HEATHER’S WORST AD PICK

Participants also chose the Nub “True Story” ad as second-best. There was no second-worst ad, as the Di Fazio ad garnered nearly 100% of the votes.

SEE THE SECOND-BEST AD

Perdomo To Sue

Miami, Florida, July 19, 2010 – Camacho Cigars, a key player in the international cigar market, and Bayer CropScience, the world’s leader in crop science and crop protection, have signed a working partnership under the Bayer Food Chain Management program. With this new alliance, Camacho Cigars has become the only tobacco company in history to be in compliance with strict international standards for Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). By complying with the practices set forth by Bayer CropScience, Camacho Cigars ensures the responsible management of natural resources, bio-friendly pesticides, industrial safety, and biosecurity. The Food Chain Partnership is the first of many steps in Camacho’s plan for a higher level of social responsibility and it’s furtherance in manufacturing the highest quality cigars in the world.

On June 29, 2010, Camacho Cigars and a team of Bayer executives welcomed select members of international media to visit their tobacco fields at Rancho Jamastran and cigar factory in Danli, Honduras. Following the daylong tour of Camacho’s operations, a press conference was held at Las Lomas where the partnership was officially signed.

First, let’s go over the residence at the factory. When you go on the cigar tour you get to ride in this pimp bus:

And you get these “VIP all-access passes”

And you get to stay at this beautiful casita on the factory premises:

Here’s the actual building where the rooms are. The rooms are hotel quality- there’s even a maid- and every two rooms share a bathroom.

This is the cigar lounge at DE which was stocked with booze and cigars that we could help ourselves to to our heart’s content. Awesome.

And here’s the outside of the Drew Estate factory. In my opinion, this was the nicest factory in Nicaragua. Not only is it new and pretty, but it doesn’t feel like a factory, by that I mean all sterile and cold. It’s colorful and painted and full of life.

Okay, here we go: the factory tour! This room is the “pre-industry” room, basically where all the raw tobacco is stored. This room is HUGE, much bigger than the picture shows, and Jon told us that it’s only a six week supply of tobacco!

More tobacco storing:

We didn’t see any fermentation or pilons at DE, but we only saw 75,000 sq ft of the 100.000 sq ft factory. Some things, like the infusion process, are secretive. We’ll get to pilons and tobacco fields in the Pepin blog to follow.

Next the tobacco goes into a humid room to soften it for rolling:

Once the tobacco is softened it’s sorted by type (capa, capote, ligero, seco, viso) and origin.

And then it’s rolled into the cigars. We didn’t see any rolling machines (to call it a machine is a stretch) here, but we did at some other factories. The rolling machine is just some cloth that a roller puts the tobacco in and manually rolls a lever over it, and this causes the cigar to roll up on itself. At places where we did see it used, it was for short filler cigars, or for the new rollers who were still learning.

After rolling, the cigars are put in a mold and pressed in this contraption for 20 minutes, then they are turned and pressed again for 20 minutes. This picture is actually from the Oliva factory because I didn’t get one at DE.

Once the cigars are rolled, molded and pressed, they are wrapped and capped, and once that is done, they are “wicked” which means left in a room to dry out for up to 48 hours. Once a cigar is wicked, it’s smokeable for about 2 days, and then it falls into a “sick” period for about 10 days, during which you don’t want to smoke it due to the ammonia being leeched out. The only brand that doesn’t really have this problem is Padron because they are using super aged tobacco with basically no ammonia left in it at all. This is the wicking room:

Some cigars are put into box pressed molds, like this one, to create a square feel:

Once the cigars are wicked, they are sorted on either a black or white table (black is better for sorting maduros). The cigars are sorted by color so that each box has cigars that look alike. This is why you might get a box of cigars and then find that a second box of cigars has a much lighter wrapper. It doesn’t mean it’s a different wrapper, it’s simply a variation in wrapper color grouped together.

Sorting:

Demonstration of wrapper color variation (at Rocky Patel), this is all the same cigar with major color differences:

Once the like colors are grouped together, they are sent to quality control. Drew Estate has the best quality control that we witnessed. They are pretty high tech in a low tech industry, using bar coding and statistical analysis. This chart shows the cigars that the first level of quality control people threw out (blue line) and the red line shows the head of quality control and how many cigars he deemed unworthy. Wherever you see a red spike is where the floor level quality control people didn’t catch enough bad product and the head of quality control ended up catching it.

And here he is, the head of quality control:

After passing quality control, the cigars are left in a cool aging room to continue to leech out ammonia and to blend the flavors into the finished product. It should be noted that DE has different rooms for their ACID cigars, JAVA cigars and natural cigars so as to not accidentally infuse some flavor into the naturals.

Now that the cigars have aged, they are ready to package and ship. All of the packaging is done by hand, including label application, box decoration, cellophaning and shrink wrapping (with the assistance of a very small machine)

Boxing up the cigars:

Shrink wrapping the new Acid Tips (Jon Drew on the right):

That’s it! Now you know how cigars are made at D.E. I’d like to point out some of the most interesting things I learned from Jon Drew. His company is very socially responsible. They don’t fire pregnant workers like some other places do, they don’t promote the illegal box trade like I mentioned in an earlier blog, and they are great patrons of the arts, even employing a full time art director, Jesse, who does graffiti art at the factory and around Nicaragua. They are also conscientious of paying taxes to Nicaragua as a way to give back to the country as opposed to trying to skirt them. Every where we went it seemed that employees were happy and well taken care of, but especially so at D.E. I was really impressed by their facility, their hospitality, and mostly, their ethics. I will be a Drew Estate supporter going forward, and I challenge everyone to learn more about their favorite cigar company and find out if they are practicing business in a responsible way. Support companies who do with your business and buy their cigars!

Next blog we’ll cover more pre-industry over at another company I was really impressed with: Don Pepin’s place- from leaf to fermentation.

Prepare to be jealous:

Joya de Nicaragua “Antono Dark Corojo”- I wanted to like this one more than I did. I have another, I’m going to give it another shot with a cleaner palate.

Illusione/Drew Estate “Nosotros”- Had one that was a week old, so it was pretty ammoniated still. Lots of potential.

A guy on the trip, Matt, gave me an LG Oscuro, which is a rare version of the LG. Thanks, Matt!

Drew Estate “Dirty Rat” – I liked this a lot- not sure of the release date.

Joya de Nicaragua “Cabineta” – With a dual wrapper (one from band down, one from band up), this was one of my favorites. I’m a sucker for a schtick.

Nestor Miranda “Dominicana” by Don Pepin – I liked it, a lot. Spicier than I would have thought, which you know I love.

Don Pepin “Tobacos Baez Serie H” – I’m about to smoke this now!

PS- I learned that Oliva is going to release the Cain “F” or Super Fuerte as a regular line in March

Factories:

Rolling Floors:

For the answers, highlight here with your mouse: 1 is Joya De Nicaragua, 2 is Perdomo, 3 is Padron, 4 is Pepin, 5 is Rocky Patel, 6 Oliva is and 7 is Drew Estate. <<< —— highlight this area with your mouse.

Few manufactures have box factories of their own, probably because of the strict restrictions in place on wood, but we were able to see one. What surprised me was how EVERYTHING is done by hand, including applying the labels to the boxes and packing them with cigars.

Here’s the wood for the boxes

And some guys making the boxes

A pile of almost-boxes

This machine adds hinges and clasps to boxes (one of the very few machines used in the cigar making process)

Applying the labels to the boxes with glue

Finished boxes ready to go!

#5 Manufacturers take armed guards with them when they cross over into Honduras.

#4 Water makes the difference. Pepin uses his well water to cure and roll cigars. Padron catches rain water and uses that. One manufacturer on Cigar Aficionados top 10 cigars of 2009 uses chlorinated city tap water which is stored in a reused ether barrel. Doesn’t that sound delicious?

#3 Blending theory varies widely amongst manufacturers, but each theory is valid. Pepin uses his own tobacco and doesn’t buy any because he wants to have control of the quality of the supply chain from beginning to end. Padron uses only Nicaraguan tobacco because they think it’s the best. Drew Estate buys and uses tobacco from different parts of the world because it makes for more interesting blends, and because puros will taste different from year to year, just like wine. Blending enables the manufacturer to ensure that they are delivering a consistent tasting product from year to year. All different ideas, all good cigars!

#2 We only saw a draw test machine at one place (Perdomo) and we saw multiple places where the “draw-test” was a human sucking on the cigar pre-wrapper and deciding if it was acceptable or not.

#1 At Joya de Nicaragua, there is a person whose sole job it is is to face the cigar so that the pretty side is up. He then takes chalk and a ruler and draws a straight line over the cigars to indicate the face, and where the label should go. Then the lady who applies the label wipes the chalk off before the label is applied.