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Saturday we hosted a roller from Cuba at the bar. His name was Felix and he usually rolls in a factory. He's been in the business for about 50 years. To make a long story short, he showed up with a duffel bag full of tobacco, and rolled all day (about one stick every 20 minutes). I had him do me up a box of torpedo's, a few churchill's, and several Robusto's. It was fascinating to watch, especially as he selected the aroma, flavor, and such, for each cigar. All of the cutting was done with a sharpened "half-moon" of sheet metal blade. I took some photo's and if anyone is interested, I'll post them on the photo page. The cigars will be just like any other Cuban (however, I had him make mine a tad bit stronger), but to smoke it knowing it was made for me while I watched will be the real treat. I won't forget that for a while. It was an honor to watch this old guy with his rough but very skilled hands sort through and cut to finally end up with a perfect looking cigar.

Okay, Will do. I stuck them in the bottom of the humidor at the bar. I'm about 6 months into this cigar smoking thing (Cubans on the weekend, Sinatra's during the week), so give me a hint as to how long they should stay in there. Thanks a bunch in advance.

based on my experience, 3 weeks is a minimum to begin seeing a marked difference, 3 months does really wonderful things to them and they tell me, 3 years does even better ... I smoke a cigar earlier tonight I'd had in there for about 7 or 8 months and it was a much, much better cigar than it's box-mates that I smoked within the first 90 days ... I've never let one age for more than a year, but will tell you, I'm gonna have to give it a try ... also, I'm truly jealous of your in-person rolling ... that too is an experience I've never tried, but have always wanted to ...

did I read this wrong??
1 stick every 20 minutes!! That works out to 3 each hour
or about 1 box every 8 hour work day.
Please tell me I read that wrong.

Thanks for the advice on ageing, I will use it well.

Yes, he took quite a while per cigar. In fact, I would venture to say that 20 minutes was for a very quick Robusto. The Torpedo's that he did for me took upwards of about 30 minutes each if not longer.

I'm in the process of posting 3 or so photo's of the action on the pic pages, so look for them under the proper heading, they'll need to pass the inspection first, however.

Felix was very meticulous about the whole process. The first thing he did was roll a quick corona without a cap on it. He then explained through one of the guys there (who happened to speak a little spanish), that it was for him to test and smoke while he worked.

He would gather a few pieces of leaf together, removing the "veins" and bunching them together (he had separate piles for flavor, aroma, etc) and then sort of wrap them up. The slow part was putting on the wrapper. He would roll it and unroll it several times, each time cutting away a bit here and there to make a perfect wrap. Notice on one of your own cigars that the wrap is a perfect rifled "spiral" up the length. Leaves don't come that perfect, they have to be cut that way.

The cap on the end was the amazing part. Putting a semi-sphere cap on the end of a cigar using a flat leaf is a near impossibility for someone like me who can't even wrap his own Christmas presents. You have to sort of cut it at an angle and spiral it down so you don't get any folds or anything. That part took a good 5-8 minutes (for a cap that I'll eventually cut off and throw into an ashtray).

Probably the most amazing part was that each and every one he rolled fit into his ring guage perfectly (he never even tested them, however I did each one out of pure astonishment). The torpedo's were tapered as if he used an angle or something.

Being somewhat good back in my own day at rolling smokes of a different type, I took it for granted that you could just "whip one up" with little or no effort. I had no idea that it took that much talent and patience. But then again, this guy has been doing it for about 50 years.

I'd say the one box a day comment was probably about right. He was probably working a bit fast to impress us, so he was able to do a few more than that.

Thanks for the advice again on the cigars, I will test them out as they change and get to experience the change for the pleasure of it.