James Suckling Most Recent Comments: See Also: Day 10: Goodbye CubaPosted: 12:40 PM ET, February 15, 2008 It was a cool trip to Cuba. I am back at home in Italy at the moment and posting my last video blog from the island. And I am sorry I left. There is so much to see and learn there, especially for a cigar smoker.
I hope you have enjoyed the blogging and got as much out of it as I did. As I mentioned in my first blog, the go-to cigar for many in the world is now the Partagas Serie D No. 4. The red-banded robusto is now the cigar many smoke on a daily basis. It even outnumbers the Montecristo Petit Corona in such large markets as France as the No. 1 smoke. Don’t be surprised if you see it being sold in tubes in a very short while!
In my second blog, a trip to the La Casa del Habano cigar shop at Conde Villanueva hotel in Old Havana near the Plaza San Francisco showed how prices on the island have finally come down slightly after years of being too high. It now makes financial sense to buy cigars on the island. For example, the wonderful Bolivar Gold Medals are selling for just over $54 for a box of 10 cigars and the same box may cost three times as much in other markets. Moreover, the Upmann Magnum and Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure lines were expanded with two new additions -- Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure Especial and H. Upmann Magnum 50, respectively.
It never hurts, as my third blog noted, to stop into the El Floridita bar for a quick daiquiri and smoke. I only wish Ernest Hemingway still haunted the joint. How cool would it be hang with the late great writer? Shame he didn’t smoke cigars.
What a welcome from the tobacco grower/guru Alejandro Robaina. Read more
Day 9: Everyone's Lunch In HavanaPosted: 01:59 PM ET, February 13, 2008 Like I didn’t have enough heavy food already after lunch with tobacco maestro Alejandro Robania. But the day after my visit to his plantation, I went to lunch with some friends at a big outdoor restaurant called El Palenque in the Siboney neighborhood of Havana. This is the closest thing to a popular restaurant, considering lots of locals hang here. It’s super cheap where a Cuban sandwich can cost a couple bucks and an ice-cold beer about half that. I have been coming here for 10 years.
The cuisine is rustic and homey with lots of pork. Check out the split suckling pigs on the open grill in the video. They were not cooking this in my honor. It’s grilling away everyday for lunch and dinner. I have the crunchy skin on the plate in the video, which we ate as an appetizer with a couple of frosty Buccanero brews. Yummy.
I have eaten my weight in lechon with the Padrón family in Esteli, Nicaragua. Dave Savona is an aficionado of the stuff as well. But José Orlando Padrón, the partriarch of the great cigar company, is all too right when he says that “no place makes better lechon than Cuba.” Look at the video again my friends.
The main course was perfectly cooked juicy pork with black beans, rice and a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage. My mouth is watering now as I write this. Forget the three-star Michelin restaurants. This is the real deal.
We lit up some Cohiba Lanceros half way through the meal. I don’t normally like to smoke and eat, but I thought why not be decadent with my buddies. And it’s nice to be able to smoke just about wherever you wish in Cuba! I am so tired of the anti-smoking laws!! But I don’t have to tell you that.
I didn’t have a lighter, so the waiter offered to lend me his. Read more
Day 8: Barns of DreamsPosted: 11:39 AM ET, February 13, 2008 Just to give you an idea of what the tobacco looks like going in the barns, check out this latest video. It’s awesome. Hiroshi Robaina, the grandson of tobacco guru Alejandro Robaina, took me for a walk through their three tobacco curing barns and I was speechless. Unbelievable quality.
Hiroshi said that this year they weren’t using any artificial curing barns because the weather was so perfect for naturally drying the leaves. Last year, they had to use almost all artificial curing because it was too hot and too dry. I am not a great fan of artificially cured tobacco. I think it cooks some of the quality out of the leaf.
But last week there was perfect warmth and the humidity was just right to cure the tobacco naturally. The only adjustments made in the barns were a little bit of chopped up moist tobacco on the floor of the barns to assure good humidity and opening and closing the barn windows and doors to regulate the temperature and freshness in the building.
The 32-year-old Hiroshi said that it takes about 10 days to have the leaves turn from green to yellow brown. Then it takes another 50 to 60 days for the tobacco to completely dry. They do a short fermentation in their barns afterwards before shipping the tobacco to close-by warehouses in San Luis, where the tobacco is sorted according to texture, size and strength and fermented another time.
Fingers crossed. Can’t wait to see the end results later this year! I still remember lots of optimistic harvests that ended with the tobacco being improperly processed. Hope it doesn’t happen this year! We need some fabulous wrappers on Cuban cigars!!
Day 7: Comparing Apples to Oranges?Posted: 02:14 PM ET, February 12, 2008 It wasn’t the first time that I smoked a “foreign cigar” with Alejandro Robaina, the great tobacco grower from Cuba’s Pinar del Río region. Alejandro is a curious man for 89-year-old and he’s always interested to try cigars from other areas in the world. He wants to know what the competition is like outside of Cuba with cigars. As proud as he is of his tobacco and Cuban cigars in general, he also admits that good cigars can come from other countries, whether Nicaragua or the Dominican Republic.
I brought him a Padrón Serie 1926 No. 9, none other than Cigar Aficionado’s Cigar of the Year, but with a maduro wrapper. Honestly, I smoked a number of the cigars out of the box and I was not as excited by them as the lighter wrapper that I smoked when we rated our top smokes last year. But it was still interesting smoking them with Cubans. In fact, I was worried coming in to Cuba with a box of these cigars. Customs didn’t say anything after x-raying my bags. They must have thought they were Cuban. Who with a sane mind would bring Nicaraguan cigars to smoke in Cuba?
You can tell from the video that Alejandro liked the Padrón. He thought they looked great and the packaging from the white and gold bands to the wooden box were fabulous. He said that the cigar was perfectly constructed and drew like a dream. He loved the fact that the cigar was box pressed. “I haven’t seen cigars in Cuba like this in years,” he said with a big smile. “Most cigars used to be like this before the revolution.”
However, I am not sure he was all that excited by the character of the smoke. He said that it lacked a bit of flavor and remained slightly earthy, like most Nicaraguan cigars. Read more
Day 6: Robaina's New WrapperPosted: 10:17 AM ET, February 11, 2008 The tobacco in Robaina's fields looked so good last week. It was bright green, large sized, clean, and ripe. Hiroshi Robaina, 32, the grandson of the legendary tobacco grower Alejandro Romania, said that it was the best tobacco the family had seen in their fields in the last 15 years. Check out the video.
Granted, I have heard such hyperbole before, especially from Alejandro. I don’t think he is a bullshiter. He is just excited about his crop. And last year’s apparently was not very good for him or anyone else in Pinar del Río. So he was very keen about this year’s harvest. The 2006/2007 growing season was just too hot to grow tobacco properly. So the crop, particularly wrapper, was very short. Only God knows what that means for cigar production this year or next. Getting a straight answer on the subject from Habanos S.A., the global distribution and marketing company, is almost impossible. Sometimes it’s almost easier talking to a paint-peeling wall in Old Havana.
This year’s tobacco crop should make up for the 2006/2007 shortfalls, assuming the good weather holds out. It’s been near-perfect for the entire growing season since the bad rains in October and November. But the rains were worse in the center of the island, where floods were prevalent. The wet weather in Pinar simply delayed some of the planting. The Robainas expected to finish their harvest in the next two weeks. Yields should be at record levels.
I was amazed how beautiful the new hybrid tobacco looked in their fields. Capero No. 1 was first planted on a large scale last year, and the Robainas, and other growers, are very happy with the results. Look for yourself at the video. The leaves on the top of the plant look as large as Conneticut leaf. Unbelievable. Although the Robainas planted some Corojo 99, about four-fifths of the plantation is in Capero No. Read more
Day 5: Smoking FumasPosted: 01:28 PM ET, February 08, 2008 Most tobacco farmers in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio, the best tobacco region on the island, have their own fumas. They are the cigars that they make from their own tobacco. You can call it their “home reserve” or “riserva de familia.” They keep a small amount of the tobacco they are growing for the state and make cigars for themselves, family and friends.
I have not had many from other growers but I can tell you that the Robaina family makes amazing fumas. They may be some of the best cigars on the island. I guess in a way they are “fake” cigars because they have not been officially made in a factory, or carry a label of a well-known brand. Pero no importa! (I am making a joke!)
Check out my video. And see what I mean.
Normally, I like to smoke the Robaina's robusto. I love the powerful yet balanced character of the smoke, which has just enough spice, coffee character in the aroma and palate. It is sort of a supercharged Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2. 93 points. (Speaking of which, you may notice soon that the Epicure No. 2 comes with double bands – one saying Hoyo and the other Epicure.)
The tiny amount of cigars the Robainas make are not for sale. They are given to family and friends who visit their finca, or farm. The tobacco in the filler is about four years old and the wrapper is about two years. This is much better aged tobacco that most cigars are made from the key factories in Havana. I am not saying they are necessarily better because the tobacco blenders of the key export factories are magicians with what they have. But the Robaina cigars certainly have class, finesse and character. It’s all about aging the tobacco.
I noticed that Alejandro, the grandfather of the clan, has come up with a new size for his family smokes – the Godfather or “padrino. Read more
Day 4: Home Sweet Home in Pinar del RioPosted: 11:45 AM ET, February 07, 2008 It’s like going home when I visit Alejandro Robaina and his family, the famous tobacco growers in Pinar del Río. Alejandro, 89, is a warm and intelligent man with a heart of gold. I often said that there were three living icons in Cuba – Fidel Castro, Alejandro Robaina and Compay Segundo. God bless the latter’s soul. I knew him well and, of course, his music.
It’s about a three-hour drive from Havana to his plantation, which is located close to the town of San Luis. He grows both wrapper and filler tobacco. The former is grown under cheesecloth-like tents, which diffuse the light to assure fine textured, thin tobacco to cover the best cigars in Cuba. His leaves are gold dust and the Cubans know it. The Robainas have about 250,000 plants this year in the ground in their fields. The harvest was already halfway done when I visited him yesterday. It looks amazing. I will tell you more about it in a few days.
Alejandro’s grandson Hiroshi, 32, actually runs the finca. His father Carlos helps as well as his uncle Frank, who lives next door and grows filler on his land. There’s an incredible family spirit when you visit the plantation. The main house where Alejandro lives, which still doesn’t have windows and only the minimum of modern conveniences, is the center of activity. Children are playing. Workers are stopping in the kitchen for a quick coffee. Mothers and grandmothers are preparing food in the kitchen and washing clothes. And, of course, Alejandro is sitting in his rocking chair smoking a cigar and greeting visitors.
I wasn’t joking when I said on the video that I wondered if they remembered who I was, considering all the people on the property. The place had people and cars everywhere when I arrived. Read more
Day 3: Watering Holes and New CigarsPosted: 09:06 AM ET, February 06, 2008 Is El Floridita the best bar on earth? New York has the Café Carlyle Hotel. Paris has the American Bar in the Ritz. And Los Angeles has Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. Sure those are cool. And the ambience, drinks and service are superb. But you can’t smoke in any of them.
The Daiquiris at El Floridita are fantastic – fresh, lemony and light. I always ask Alejandro, the main barman, to use seven-year-old rum, instead of the young
firewater rum most places use for cocktails. I appreciate the story that Ernest Hemingway drink his Daiquiris at El Floridita and his mojitos at Bodeguita del Medio. Not only could the guy write, but he was also a great drinker. And he had good taste.
I went to the El Floridita after bizarre dinner at the Polynesian restaurant in the Havana Libre. The food was a mixture of greasy smoked meats and frozen Chinese food crossed with leather. Did people really eat stuff like this in the 1950s? No wonder my parent’s generation have such high cholesterol now! Frank Sinatra would roll over in his grave, if he knew. To add salt to the wounds, the wine was cooked. This is how I remember “dining” in Cuba in the early 1990s. Terrible.
It’s a shame because the Havana Libre, where the restaurant is located, is beautiful. If I remember correctly, it was completed in 1958 but was soon rebranded after the revolution. Years ago I went to the Penthouse there and saw where Fidel Castro and Che Guevara controlled the island when they entered Havana as victors of the revolution. There are also some amazing paintings in the penthouse from Porto Correos. I'd love to go back there again.
I did get the chance to smoke a prototype yesterday of the new H. Read more
Day 2: Cigar Shop TalkPosted: 12:02 PM ET, February 05, 2008 Hit up my first cigar shop yesterday. La Casa del Habano at Conde Villanueva is located in Old Havana near the Plaza San Francisco in a small hotel in a renovated colonial building once owned by a Spanish nobleman about 200 years ago. This place just blows you away with it history and character. Check out the video.
The selection in the shop is great at the moment. I couldn’t believe all the Limitadas. There were dozens of boxes, including Montecristo C from Edición 2006. The most abundant were last year’s Limitadas: Romeo y Julieta Esucdos, the Hoyo de Monterrey Regalos, and the Trinidad Ingenious. Plenty of the Cohiba Maduro 5s are around as well. I love the rich and coffee character of those babies. And then I saw a stack of Bolivar Gold Medals, which are a lovely refined smoke that taste like the refined and flavorful smokes of ten or 15 years ago. And they only cost about $7 a stick. They come in boxes of ten.
It seems that prices are finally better in Cuba for buying cigars. Until recently, very little incentive existed for buying cigars on the island because prices were about the same as in Spain and in Switzerland. What was the use of buying cigars on the island when many people could avoid the hassle (especially the difficulty with Cuban customs) and just get them when they got home? But now prices appear to be about 10 to 15 percent less than elsewhere, maybe even less. I am sure Gold Medals are double the Cuban price elsewhere in the world.
I love the fact that you can hang in a Havana cigar shop such as Conde and smoke, drink a rum or coffee, and just shoot the shit with the hermanos who work there. A good way to spend an hour or two – even if it is work!
I heard there are three new Limitadas for 2008 that will debut during the Habanos Festival, including the Partagas Serie D No. Read more
The Sad Truth of ItPosted: 03:56 PM ET, January 24, 2008 Smoking outside is not what it’s cracked up to be! In fact, it mostly sucks at this time of year. I was thinking about this other night when I was smoking a 1995 Bolivar Belicoso Fino by the pool at my hotel in West Hollywood with a friend of mine. It’s cold in Los Angeles right now, and wet.
It didn’t help that some gorilla-sized bouncer came up and threw us out. “Gentlemen, it’s time for you to finish up and go,” he said, looking like he was going to grab us by the collar and throw us on the street if we didn’t put out our smokes and down our drinks.
“Relax. Talk to the front desk. They know me here. Just give us a little more time to enjoy our smokes,” I said. The dude got pissed. It was only 10:05 and he gave me some B.S. about local noise ordinances. We did get 10 more minutes before we were forced to leave...
Service really stinks in Los Angeles. I can’t tell you how many times I have been abused by receptionists, waiters, parking valets—you name it. My only consolation is that they may never get the acting or music gig they think that they deserve because their attitude sucks. But that’s a different column. Let’s talk about smoking cigars.
We ended up sitting on my balcony, smoking and probably making more noise than sitting at the pool. We just quietly spoke about life and stuff brothers do. I was smoking and shivering at the same time. Granted, it was not like smoking outside in Paris before Christmas with a buddy on the terrace of a café with gas heaters blazing away. (I still remember the cream, cedar flavors of the Romeo & Julieta Short Churchill!) It was cold, even in the sunshine. My ass almost froze to the seat. My hands were blue holding the cigar.
I keep thinking about my poor cigar brothers in super cold places like New York, Moscow, Oslo and anywhere else threatened by ice and snow. You get the idea. They must freeze their asses off when they have to smoke a cigar! In addition, many great cigars go to waste when you smoke out in the bad weather. Read more
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