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How Does He Make That? Watching a Cigar Roller
This past December, a conversation with a local cigar lounge owner turned to his plans for 2019. He was planning to become the first cigar establishment in Arizona to be approved as a cigar manufacturer, to be legally selling cigars rolled on the premise.
A week ago, I stopped by and watched the roller at work. So, how do you roll a cigar? It turns out that the more important question is “how do you make a cigar?”
To start, you will need to get on the Internet and look up the appropriate federal government office. Like distilling alcohol for drinking, the manufacture of tobacco products is federally regulated. Unlike distilling, you could legally grow your own tobacco plant, cure the tobacco, and turn it into a smoking product for personal consumption, as a hobby. Good luck with that. So, we are back to asking Uncle Sam’s permission to manufacture tobacco products.
The application process takes about fifteen months, less if you’re good at filling out government paperwork. Assuming you have your paperwork in order, you will need a dedicated climate controlled storage area for the tobacco leaves and freshly rolled cigars. The freshly rolled cigars must stay out of the retail humidor both until they have had a chance to stabilize in moisture level and, critically, until you have paid the tax man.
The feds demand their cut up front and the tax is assessed per cigar, so, inventory control is critical. This issue leads to a second requirement.
The cigar lounge owner wants to highlight his roller at work. That is fine, great for business, but subject to a strict rule: you can look, but you better not touch. Uncle Sam wants his cut of each and every stick: no exceptions, no freebies, no exempted sample stock. So, the business owner must build out a glassed-in work area for his roller, barring anyone from reaching for a freshly rolled cigar.
Beyond the climate-controlled storage area, and the glassed-in work area, the roller needs a sturdy wooden workbench and a set of wooden molds that are placed in a steel press to mold the cigars. The roller might bring his own tools for cutting and forming.
I watched the roller working steadily, clearly a master the craft he learned in Cuba. He employed the classic Cuban techniques, producing the highest quality at a steady 150 cigars per day pace. Cigar Journal explains the entubado technique:
This is the classic method. It was actually developed in Seville at the end of the 17th century; originally it was only the tobacco that came from Cuba. For this, the filler leaves are formed into individual rolls that are then placed next to each other and formed into a bunch. The ligero leaf is placed in the middle of the filler. This is a very strong, spicy leaf, which burns slowly. It is what gives the cigar its strength. The seco leaf is aromatic, spicy and burns reasonably well. It gives the cigar the necessary balance. The volado is mild and burns easily. The individually rolled filler leaves allow the smoke to move freely through the finished, cylindrical cigar; the smoke must pass through all the leaves, and thus carries more aroma and flavour to the palate. A well-rolled cigar produces a cool, slow and even burn. The torcedor then completes the bunch (Span: bonche) by rolling them in the binder. The cigar must be rolled from the head (the end that goes in the mouth) down. During this process the filler must be evenly packed along the full length of the cigar. The foot of the bunch (end that you light) is trimmed using a guillotine or a chaveta. The finished bunch is placed into a mould, where it will be pressed for at least 30 minutes. In order to ensure that the cigar is evenly shaped, the mould is opened once and the bunch turned.
After the partially completed cigars rest in the molds, the roller finishes the cigar with a wrapper leaf. This is selected for consistent color and lack of blemishes. The wrapper leaf spirals up the cigar. The cutter trims off the excess except for a flap. The flap is fastened over one end with a dab of vegetable glue. You must then glue a round piece of leaf over the flap, forming an end cap. The classic Cuban technique has the roller apply a second circular cut piece, ending up with three layers of leaf on the end and two round caps protecting the cigar from unraveling when cut and lit.
Through the whole process, the roller is careful to control the moisture level in the leaves. After all, the materials are dead plant matter. Nature’s course is for a leaf to dry into dust or to rot into mulch. A spray bottle and a lightly damp cloth keeps the tobacco properly pliable.
The roller’s steady daily production is building up an inventory towards a premier event, kicking off sales on 1 March 2019. For perspective, 150 cigars is about 6 boxes of premium cigars. With an average local price of $10 per cigar, that is $1,500 minus materials, labor, and taxes. The roller is usually paid on a production basis, per cigar rolled. The owner explained to me that he had agreed with the roller on 150 as the target, maintaining consistent quality with sufficient quantity.
I admire a small business owner innovating, taking risk, in the face of hostile do-gooders, claiming to act in the public interest, and formidable bureaucracies with law enforcement power over him. A major cigar maker, Rocky Patel, proclaims: “Socialism stinks, Cigars don’t.” At this moment, in both Latin America and the United States, lovers of liberty should be able to enthusiastically endorse the first half, and recognize prohibitionist and restrictionist “for the children” attacks as attacks on the liberty of others.
Published in Group Writing
I’ve written about alcohol and tobacco. I’m not completing the trifecta, so someone else can do the firearms “how do you make that” post.
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under the February 2019 Theme Writing: How Do You Make That? There are plenty of dates still available. Tell us about anything from knitting a sweater to building a mega-structure. Share your proudest success or most memorable failure (how not to make that). Do you agree with Arahants’ General Theory of Creativity? “Mostly it was knowing a few techniques, having the right tools, and having a love for building and creating whatever it was.” Our schedule and sign-up sheet awaits.
I will post March’s theme mid month.
Why not do that?
In my bicycle outings, the only place I’ve ridden past a tobacco field is in western Wisconsin, north of the Wisconsin River. Maybe I’ve gone past others, too, but I usually try to pay attention to the crops and that’s the only time I can recall. But it also drew my attention because people were out cutting tobacco leaves and taking them to wherever they take them to cure.
Good question. Yes, and that crop is likely of one kind of tobacco leaf. You could roll your own, but the effort in cultivation, aging, and selection of leaves with the different qualities desired in filler, binder, and wrapper, is considerable. If you have all the right materials, you still have the challenge of getting the rolling right. Too tight and not enough air passes through in the “draw.” Too loose and the thing burns poorly, and falls apart.
The return on investment of personal time seems to me far less than for, say home brewing, or cheese making, or such.
As a longtime cigar aficionado, I endorse this completely and without reservation. Great post.
Thanks for a fascinating post. Reminded me of two sweet memories, my dad, who was a cigar aficionado, although his favorite guilty pleasure, when my mother wasn’t looking, was a pipe. I used to love going to the tobacconist with him (when such things were commonplace) and sniffing up all the different scents, of the loose tobacco, and the cigars in the humidor. A couple, on the very rare occasions when I catch a whiff of them now, still conjure him up instantly.
The other is of rolling cigarettes for Grandpa on one of those little cigarette-roller thingys, when I was, oh, I dunno, maybe three or four. I loved setting a cigarette’s worth of tobacco in the little machine, turning the rollers a few times to get it perfectly shaped, feeding in the one edge of the paper, licking the other edge with the gum on it, and turning the rollers like mad before the glue set to make a perfectly cylindrical “fag.” In my eyes it was magic!
I’m sure my parents and grandparents would be prosecuted for allowing a small child to participate in such an activity today. Who knows where it might lead? (Nowhere, actually.) But perhaps, after all, that is what warped me for life. Surely it must have. What, it’s only been sixty years? Maybe I can find a lawyer to take my case . . .
I doubt there will ever be a machine made cigar that even comes close to a handmade cigar in quality and aroma . . .
#metoo!!!
My wife and I just arrived in our favorite destination in Mexico yesterday. I bring my own cigars because the Mexican made product isn’t even close in quality to the Dominicans. Cuba used to be the gold standard, but after 60 years of communism…not so much anymore. I lit up a magnificent Ashton VSG Torpedo to go with my bourbon neat last night. There is something about the climate here that is a natural humidor. What a smoke!
Cigars can be things of beauty. The craft of rolling along with the years of aging and blending, create a unique product for human enjoyment. Naturally something so wonderful MUST BE STOPPED.
I worked in Trinidad in the early 1990’s and was there once for Carifesta.
The country that had the best setup was Cuba because they had a stand that served rum and one that sold hand-rolled cigars. We would go daily after work for a toddy and to buy some of those cigars – rolled by 2 very old men who were happy to show off their craft. I’ve never experienced a cigar like that in my life – they were incredible.
I love watching folks roll cigars. I’m off the nicotine now, but I always enjoyed a fine, handrolled cigar. I saw a documentary a few years ago that said that women are better than men and identifying the minor variations in the brown color of the leaves, so they get the job to separate the leaves by color. I find that interesting…
I watched some ladies rolling cigars in Orlando at Universal Studios a while back, a true art. I wondered why they refused to sell me a fresh one, I see from your post it was due to tax related law.
I smoke only handmade cigars, and know how important consistency is. Some brands are very good at it ( probably around 85% are quality) while some are not ( closer to 50% acceptable) But even in the high cost premiums I have smoked ( not so many, I can’t afford $15 + a stick!) there are a few duds that either can’t draw well enough to light or fall apart in your mouth before you are halfway through.
Also, I prefer pyramids (pointy on the mouth end) as they are easier to cut and less likely to leave tobacco in your mouth when you smoke them. I understand they can be even more challenging to roll.
I just really don’t get cigars. It seems like it would be much more efficient to main line the nicotine into your veins, and less work. The only smoke worth a darn is that used to cure meat and make BBQ.
Communism kills…everything. Command economies are lousy at responding to global demand changes.
A fine cigar is on par with a fine whiskey or a well smoked brisket. All together would be best.
Cigars, and pipes, are extremely inefficient nicotine delivery systems, which is why you don’t get ads about cigar or pipe withdrawal aids.
If you want nicotine, go with a good quality vape system.
There are many people who do not know that cigars are not made to inhale, making the abortionist of nicotine unlikely.
P.S. How the word “abortionist” got in that sentence is beyond my understanding. The word should have been “absorption”…making the absorption of nicotine unlikely.
FIFY, unless you were really going somewhere else with this.