Monday, August 22, 2011

My precious...

Here's a picture of me with my beauties!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Cigars! Cancun's got 'em!

I'll be straight with you all. I really wasn't convinced by this trip to Cancun organized by my lovely one. I promised to be really quiet about the whole thing, but there were some glitches that made me nervous. Anyway, I won't go into those because I found a place that carries cigars.

Correction: Rather, I should say, they make them!

The place is called Buena Vista Tobacco Factory. I am so glad I walked up to the door to ask to take a peek. I was greeted by one of the managers of the factory, who was... Cuban! Staffed with about 30 people, the place easily has a half dozen Cubans who are training Mexicans to roll cigars alongside them.

We hit it off almost immediately. He could tell I was a true amateur of a good smoke, and offered me one to try. I was blown away. The secret? Cuban seeds grown in a place in Ecuador that mimics the soil, climate and tobacco farms of embargoed island. The plus... I was smoking cigars that I could smoke back in the U.S!

Anyway, the next day I learned a ton about how cigars are rolled and ended up rolling 10 of my own. (A side note: a good average production rate is 80 to 100 cigars per day). It took me all day to roll those. It's not as easy as these guys make it look. Here's a video my lovely one put together this morning.




Sunday, August 14, 2011

Getting ready to vacation. Wondering if there are cigars.

My lovely one was beginning to give me that look at the restaurant. The one where she was threatening to leave me if I didn't give her time off. So, I casually mentioned something about closing the restaurant briefly for a holiday and she ran with it. 

She started googling all the travel sites, and it seemed like she was looking at Europe, the Mediterranean, South America. I started asking her to look into Cuba or the Dominican Republic, because my idea of a vacation is one where I can smoke cigars.

After researching about a thousand resorts and bed-and-breakfasts, she finally bought a package to Mexico.  So that's where we're headed. I need to find out where I can get some good cigars.