America's #1 Online Cigar Auction
first, best, biggest!

I like em. they aren't painted, there is a wrapper boiling process I think that deals with molasses or something. I don't mind the stain, it's not permenant. i just look in the mirror after i'm done and don't touch my clothes.

There is some kind of process that they use to make an oscuro wrapper. I thought I read that the wrappers are boiled in a molasses solution. some people claim they are painted, but that makes no sense.

I have never heard of this 'molasses' theory ... and seriously doubt it.

Maduro (and oscuro) leaves are moisted and allowed to ferment in large containers until they turn a dark, rich, brown (or almost black) color.

Then the leaves are bundled together, and are put into large piles, called burros. To reach the high temperatures necessary for proper fermentation, these piles, called burros are six feet high.

They are exposed to a much higher temperature, usually 108 degrees (42 C), for a much longer period of time, which can be up to 60 days. The leaves on the outside are rotated with those on the inside to ensure even fermentation.

This process is monitored even more closely than the first fermentation process, because if the middle of the burro goes above 108 degrees, the leaves become abnormally dark, and their flavor profile becomes radically different.

Sometimes the leaves are exposed to higher temperatures for even longer periods of time. These leaves are typically wrapper leaves, and these wrapper leaves almost always are maduro (dark brown) or oscuro (black).

Many oscuro wrappers produced for the US market use a process called “cooking,” where the fermenting leaves are placed as bundles in an oven that is heated to 120 degrees, creating a wrapper that is dark as night itself.

Well there goes my theory of little Santa's elves doing the painting. X

Does anybody know what makes an Indian Tabac Gorilla smell like apples?

I much prefer some new cigars that attain their dark wrappers naturally like the Partagas Black, La Fontana Vintage Black Label and HdM Dark Sumatras, though I guess technically these shouldn't be called maduros.

... I've never tried mole asses before ...

- how do they taste ?

Could we feed the moles coffee beans to get a new type of coffee? (Refer to Cat A$$ coffee thread).

The only black smokes I've had would be, Fidalgo Negros, they are pretty good. Never experienced what happened to you.

Mag

I topped this, because of an article originally published in December 2001 at CA on Perdomo Cigars ...

It has to do with Perdomo's critics charging that he 'paints' some of his maduros ...

Quoted from the article:

One of his earliest successes was his La Tradicion Cabinet Series Perdomo Reserve, a strong cigar brand that averaged 90.4 points in a 1998 Cigar Insider vertical brand tasting, one of the year's best brand averages. The cigars featured dark, oily wrappers. Critics said they were too dark and oily, and were painted, a charge that rankles Perdomo.

"That bugs the **** out of me," he says. The look, he says, comes from leaves grown at the top of a plant, which have the most oils and resins. He says he sprays his wrappers with a mixture of water steeped in tobacco resins, then applies heat to bring the most out of tobacco. Why does Perdomo think he draws the charges of paint? "Your competition always wants to kill you," he says. "I'm the young guy on the block; I've been pretty successful in a short amount of time, and they don't like it."