On sunday sitting in the back yard and smoking a "hand-made" Taboada (RT) double corona, rememebered a conversation I had back in '04 in ISOM.
I was in Club Habana sitting in the club house terrace facing the ocean enjoying a great Espresso and Hoyo de Monterey Epicure Especial, when Mon, the director for their LCDH came in and handed me a cigar and told me to enjoy a custom rolled,"totally handmade" Piramides. I told him aren't all cigars handmade excluding machine made. He winked at me and left. I thought that was a strange exchange. So I set out to find out what he meant by totally handmade.
I went back to La Corona and asked a few people what that meant to them and they all looked at me with baffled looks. Then I asked Taboada and told him the whole story. He knew right away what he meant. In the pre-revolution era when he was trained as a roller you were an aprentice for at least a year and even then it didn't guarantee that you could move on to be a roller. Nowadays you take an 8 weeks course and you are good to go. Back to the story, in those days everything was done by hand, totally. Meaning there was no box press. I am sure you all have seen the process. Take a handfull of ligero, seco and volado and shape it crudely into a box mold and then leave it under the press for about 45 minutes to an hour, then bring it out and place the wrapper ," la capa", for the final stage.
"So you mean you can make the cigars without box press", I asked. So why haven't you told me about this and his response of course, "you didn't ask me". That SOB. Excited about all this it suddenly occured to me that staright forward sizes like double coronas and robustos are easy to make but how about Lanceros, Piramides or Salomones. And he replied that, that is when the true talent of a roller would emerge. Can you imagine, no box press. There are only a handful of rollers left in ISOM with these abilities. They stopped the practice of totally handmade and introduced the box press in early 60's in order to increase production and efficiency.
So I asked him right there and then to make me two sizes. A prominente with a 50 ring gauge and a Lancero with a 38 ring gauge. He made me three of each. All perfect size and went thru the gauge meter barely. By this time a crowd was around us basically challenging him to this and that. It was then that I realize that I was in the presence of a true artist.
A lot of you have questioned or wondered why I speak so highly of the man or swear by what he makes. I think thru experiences like this and many more. I still have two batches of those cigars left and I cherish them like no other. Not because they are better. They are on par with his other cigars. Simply becuase they are a work of art in my mind and TOTALMENTE Hecho a mano.....
Enjoy your day.
