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WTH am I doing giving this thing away Contest ?!

A little cigar history....


The indigenous inhabitants of the islands of the Caribbean Sea and Mesoamerica have smoked cigars since as early as the 10th century, as evidenced by the discovery of a ceramic vessel at a Mayan archaeological site in Uaxactún, Guatemala, decorated with the painted figure of a man smoking a primitive cigar. Explorer Christopher Columbus is generally credited with the introduction of smoking to Europe.

Two of Columbus's crewmen during his 1492 journey, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, are said to have disembarked in Cuba and taken puffs of tobacco wrapped in maize husks, thus becoming the first European cigar smokers.

Towards the end of the 16th Century, 1592, the Spanish galleon "San Clemente" brought to the Philippines over the Acapulco - Manila Trade Route some 50 kg of Cuban tobacco seed. This was then distributed among the Roman Catholic missions. The good churchmen found excellent climates and soils for growing with top class seed high quality tobacco on Philippine soil.

In the 19th century, cigar smoking was common while cigarettes were still comparatively rare. The cigar business was an important industry, and factories employed many people before mechanized manufacturing of cigars became practical. Many modern cigars, as a matter of prestige, are still rolled by hand; some boxes bear the phrase Totalmente a mano, "Totally by hand," as proof.
 
OK guys, I am gonna help you out a little bit. I see some interesting posts, but I want to encourage you some..

Someone enlighten me on Entuabo and Arrugado rolling methods

Someone enlighten me on the different leaves of the plant and primarily what each priming is used for.

Someone enlighten me on different methods of "making" a maduro.
 
tkoepp said:
OK guys, I am gonna help you out a little bit. I see some interesting posts, but I want to encourage you some..

Someone enlighten me on Entuabo and Arrugado rolling methods
: Thighs vs Breasts

Someone enlighten me on the different leaves of the plant and primarily what each priming is used for.
: Some are bigger - some smaller...smaller ones are used to wipe the sweat off the bossom of the virgin rollers!

Someone enlighten me on different methods of "making" a maduro.
: you DON't want to know!
Click to expand...
 
I am borrowing this from the "Humatic Journal" because I don't feel like extensive paraphrasing. I always found the differences within the tobacco plant to be very fascinating. The differences in a cigars flavor from a Criollo to a Corojo and variation resulting from different concentration of different parts of the leaves, especially the impact of ligero leaves. So....

Two Types of Plants

The cigar is made in three parts. The filler is the inside part of the cigar and is made from three different leaves. The binder leaf holds the filler in place. The wrapper is the skin or outside of the cigar and gives it beauty.
Few tobacco plants are capable of producing a leaf with proper quality to be used as a wrapper. In Cuba, the wrapper comes from the Corojo plant. The corojo or wrapper plant is usually grown under great muslin cloths. This keeps the plant out of direct sunlight. This produced leaves that are pale in color and with ultra fine qualities that are the best for use as a cigar wrapper or finished leaves.

Corojo plants are grown under a muslin cover. Sunlight is notallowed to hit the leaves and thus produces a leaf that is pliable.
The corojo plant is named after the famous El Corojo Vega or plantation. This where the seeds were developed. This variety produces one type of leaf. The capa or wrapper. It costs more to produce this leaf than other tobaccos.

Corojo leaves are grouped into seven levels on the stem. This is for purposes of harvesting and classification. Wrapper leaves are also classified by color. Claro (light brown), Colorado Claro (mid brown), Colorado (dark brown), and Maduro (black).

There are eight or nine pairs of leaves on a Corojo plant. Each level on the plant has its own name. Leaves from these levels are picked individually as the reach maturity. This is usually each six to seven days. Harvesting the leaves of a single plant takes over forty days to complete. Criollo plants are grown in direct sunlight. This produces plants with a wide variety and the greatest intensity of flavors for various blends.

The criollo plant produces four of the five leaves that are finally blending to create a myriad of flavors found in many of the different premium cigars produced worldwide. Criollo is the perfected strain of theonly true Cuban seed tobacco.

The Criollo plant produces six or seven pairs of leaves. These classified as Ligero (top leaf), Seco (middle leaf), Capote (lower leaf), and Volado (bottom leaf).

The Ligero, or top leaf, has the strongest flavor as it is exposed to the most sunlight and is the oldest. The Seco, or middle leaf, is usually larger than the ligero and has a milder taste. The Capote, or lower leaf, is milder yet. The Volado, or bottom leaf is the mildest of all as it is exposed to the least amount of sunlight.
 
Someone enlighten me on the different leaves of the plant and primarily what each priming is used for.
Click to expand...


Priming

Volado - First – Lightest and sweetest. This leaf is normally uses a binder.

Seco - Second – Harvested approximately seven days after first priming, often used for the binder and filler
Third – 70% will be used for wrappers.
Fourth – More body due to more exposure to sunlight and heavier in texture. This tobacco is sometimes used for wrapper.

Ligero - Fifth – One of the most robust leaves on the plant and is typically used as a binder. If you see a very dark-wrapped cigar that is not a Maduro it may very well come from the fifth priming. It will need extended fermentation and processing to lighten its texture and reduce its strength if used for a wrapper.
Sixth – Usually used only for long filler. This is the slowest burning leaf of the tobacco plant. It is very flavorful but not suitable for wrappers because the leaves are small.


Aging Tobacco


After picking the leaves are tied together and hung to dry in wooden barns called casa de tobacco for 45 days.
After being harvested the cigar tobacco enters the fermentation stage.
The tobacco is slightly moistened then piled in huge bales or stalks.
Temperatures inside the bales reach 140 deg F as the tobacco “sweats” during the early stages.

Some tobacco may be “turned” up to 3 – 4 times and remoistened before fermentation ends. This process releases ammonia from the tobacco and reduces the overall nicotine content.

The fermented tobacco is then wrapped in bales – usually surrounded by burlap to age.
Aging time is 18-months to 2-years. Some keep inventories of tobacco as old as 10-years.


Someone enlighten me on different methods of "making" a maduro.
Click to expand...

Maduro Wrapper


Maduro is the Spanish word for “ripe”.
Leaves are selected from the 4th & 5th priming of the tobacco plant.
Maduro wrappers are fermented longer and at a higher temperature.
Not all tobacco leaves can be used to create Maduro wrappers. Maduro tobacco must withstand higher temperature.
Connecticut Broadleaf and Mexican Sumatra are the 2 strains most commonly used to create a Maduro wrapper.


There ya go
Tim
 
Since I just won a contest I'm on a roll. Here's some things you may or may not know.

A "stogie" took its moniker from the Pennsylvania manufacturers who used Conestoga or covered wagons to advertise the pungent, powerful and lower-priced cigar.

One theory is that paper cigar rings were created to protect 19th-century white-gloved swells from the tobacco residue on less than perfect cigars. They later became a labeling device.

A thousand tobacco seeds can fit inside a thimble.

A cured tobacco leaf is brown because its chlorophyll has been replaced by carotene.

The world record of most cigar boxes stacked: an astonishing 211 boxes on top of one another, a feat that lasted for 9 seconds, until gravity kicked in.

President William McKinley insisted on smoking Havana's, but stocked the less expensive White Owl brand for presentation to reporters and guests.

One of the most popular sayings, Close but no cigar, is a euphemism for getting near success, only to have it evade you at the last moment. Though no one is 100 percent positive as to the origin of this saying, it's highly speculated that it came from old carnival games and old slot machines. When first invented, the carnival games wouldn't pay out with plush toys stuffed with Styrofoam and the slot machines wouldn't pay out with hard cash. Instead, the winners would receive cigars, leaving the loser to, of course, only take solace in the fact that they were close.

At one time people believed that women had tender nostrils, and would thus be sensitive to the aroma of tobacco, men often donned a smoking jacket before lighting up a cigar. While it initially was worn to appease women, smoking jackets, made of expensive material, eventually became a sign of status.

Monte Cristo - This cigar brand was named for The Count of Monte Cristo, a novel written by Alexandre Dumas. Legend states that this novel was very well liked among cigar rollers; it was often read aloud in the factories while the rollers worked.

A ‘chaveta’ is the semi-circular blade used by the torcedores.

I'll end this with a quote from Sir Winston:
"My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them."



Thanks for the contest!
 
Less than an hour left... anyone want to give it one last shot??
 
Nope, I am happy with my contribution.

This has, however, been a really great contest. I learned a lot while trying to find useful information to post. so, in the end, it is a win/win situation for everyone.

Thanks

Tim
 
The history of the cigar shop Indian dates back to the early 1600s in Europe. Indians were widely associated with tobacco because they introduced the miracle crop to Europeans. And due to widespread illiteracy among the general population at the time, shop owners made it a habit to link their goods and services to easily recognizable insignia. So it was simply inevitable that tobacconists start using Indian figurines and statues to advertise their products to an uneducated populace.

But because only a handful of Europeans in the seventeenth century had ever really seen a Native American, early cigar store “Indians” looked more like Africans dressed up in Indian regalia. These initial carvings went by the monikers of “Black Boys” and – due to the tobacco-rich Jamestown settlement – “Virginians”. Eventually, as Europeans became more exposed to Native Americans and their culture, the carvings evolved into more accurate depictions of Indians.

Earlier cigar store Indians were almost entirely female (often depicted with a papoose), but it seems as though their male counterparts now dominate the tobacco advertisement industry. And while sidewalk obstruction laws have forced many American tobacconists to move their sculptures indoors (thanks again, paternalistic government, for looking out for our “interests”), today no stogie shop is complete without one.
 
After reviewing some GREAT entries I opted to let Jenniffer be the judge and see which one she felt that she learned from..

Congrats to Insight...

and Ray send me your addy as the runner up, Jenn was facinated by some of the trivial facts about tobacco.


Thanks again to all the participants, I will definetly have to do this again sometime as we ALL learn from it.
 
I think I missed this. The only knowledge I have to sahre is "The smoking lamp is Lit. Smoke em' if you got em'."

By the way, I have not made cases like that but I have weaved a few baskets and made a few wallets. :laugh:
 
Oh hell. How did I miss this thread. I would have rolled out the next "History of the Havana Cigar" to the cause. :D

Wilkey
 
WHOOO! I'm on a roll now!

Thanks to Tim for the contest and his wife for having the good graces to select me :p

PM sent.
 
well played, and well chosen

Tim
 
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