Arganese Trip... with some pictures!

[Dave]

Hey guys, I figured it's about time I get off my butt and actually post up some pics from my trip down to the factory.

First, these are the guys I who joined us on the trip. There were only four people scheduled, and thanks to that, we all got our own room.
From left to right: Tony, Dave (myself), Cristobal (our host and factory manager), Rich, and Charlie. This is the bar area, stocked with rum and beer in the fridge. Scotch and Cognac not included.

Now for some pictures of Gene's house, where we stayed at. I'm sure they will be self explanatory.

Nelson, the cook. He has dreams to go to Europe and make a living as a chef, preferably Spain and Italy. He can make many different types of cuisines, but I was asking for something more Dominican and asked him if he could make some morir sonando. The next day, we had some for breakfast, it was fantastic.

Jose, the housekeeper. Big baseball fan at heart. He kept the house very clean and aesthetically nice, always provided us with freshly washed towels and made our beds.

Right side of the pool and jacuzzi.

Left side of the pool where we get in.

The coconut trees. Fresh coconut is pretty tasty.

Sights from the rear balcony.

Our neighbors from over yonder.

The Arganese bus.

One of the many living rooms.

 

[Dave]

Yet another living room.

The lounging area downstairs. This is where we spent most of our smoking time, as it was conveniently located near the bar.

This dining set was left by the previous owner of the house. I didn't know what prompted that person to have a Chinese influenced area, but I'm glad Gene kept it. It gave a nice little diversity from the mostly western style furniture found throughout the rest of the pad.

Now on to the factory...

The man responsible for the blends, Simon Bolivar. Here he is preparing to roll cigars just for us.

The above four pictures show the mounds and mounds of tobacco leaves still in the fermenting process.

Cristobal showing us a fermented corojo leaf soon to be made into a wrapper.

The factory workers rolling away. They were all pleasant, and said hi to us while still working. I'm impressed by the amount of concentration they have to slave away at the tables making cigars. There are two people working in a team, one buncher and one roller.

 

[Dave]

This is how they pack the tobacco into bales. They use wax paper to cover the bundles, then use an enormous vice to press it down, then the canvas clothes are sewn together, and later labeled.

One of the workers rolls a cigar for us, made entirely of ligero leaf. Very spicy, very flavourful, and very strong.

Pictures of the humidor. Cigars as far as the eye can see.

 

[Dave]

Pictures of the aging room. Soon these will become cigars ready to be packed and shipped. Takes at least three months for the finished cigar to reach smokeable quality.

The quality control room/blend room. They use a scale to weight the cigars, and if the bundles deviate too much from the norm, they are taken apart and inspected individually. In this room are also bags full of various tobaccos, along with ingredient lists for each blend showing how much of each respective tobacco leaf is used for that particular blend.

The sorting, banding, and packaging room. The cigars go through their final quality control procedure, then sorted by color, and then banded.

Banded cigars. That tray has a measurement on the sides that show the where to put the bands, how long they should be, etc.

The packaging department hard at work.

More to come once I figure out how to add more pictures. But this is the main idea of the factory. I didn't take pictures of the fields because of several reasons:

1) Most of them were already picked clean
2) A crop of tobacco is no different than crop of corn when it grows, you just see fields and fields of it.
3) There's not much to a curing barn, other than the tobacco strung up on the beams all over the place.
and 4) I feel the factory is where most of the labor is done, thus watching how the employees do their job, I feel a greater appreciation for the cigars (not just Arganese cigars, but all cigars) and am better able to enjoy them better.

 

[billbaker3]

Very nice!!!

 

[Shibumi]

Nice pics Dave! Looks like you had a blast.

 

[qballizhere]

Nice pics looks like you had a lot of fun and educational

 

[stogieman]

Nice pics Dave, thanks for sharing...... :thumbs:

 

[Niko]

Very nice pics, thank you for sharing!

 

[tomthirtysix]

Great pics, Dave. That 100% ligero smoke have your head spinning?

 

[tone-ny]

Dave thanks for sharing, you'll have to tell us more on Wednesday!

 

[H311oLHD]

Thank you VERY much for my virtual vacation :laugh:...great shots!!!

 

[sinnyc]

Dave, that's great stuff. Thanks for posting. It looks like you had a blast! If the rest of the Arganese clan was as pleasant and generous as Gene was out at the Vegas herf, I'm sure it was a trip to remember.

- Tim

 

[BigMacFU]

Nice pics Dave, that's certainly an awesome trip! Where was Gino in any of them?

 

[MOBIG]

Nice pics :thumbs:

 

[Dave]

Here are the last of them to finish off the experience...

The finished product. As you might recognize, these are all of the Maduro torpedos.

The shrinkwrap machine. Don't leave home without it.

The boxes and boxes of CL3 ready for shipment.

There ends the weekend get-away at Casa de Arganese.

It was definitely informative, and an eye opening experience. If any of you ever get an opportunity, I advise going on it.

 

[Dave]

Great pics, Dave. That 100% ligero smoke have your head spinning?

Almost tossed my salad after finishing it. It was all strength but had a monotonous flavour throughout, lacking any form of complexity. Definitely something I would smoke while mowing the lawn.

Nice pics Dave, that's certainly an awesome trip! Where was Gino in any of them?

Gene was still in Rhode Island working on how to compensate his company for the SCHIP tax, so sadly he never had a chance to come down and join us.

 

[ProBe]

Very cool pics thanks for sharing.

 

[Rural Guy]

Almost tossed my salad after finishing it.

Well, that's one idea to get the taste out of your mouth...

 

[LouieD]

Nice pics, Dave. Looks like you had a great trip.

/Lou