|
Home > What's New > Mega-Cigar in Puerto Rico
Mega-Cigar in Puerto Rico
Posted: Wednesday, February 16, 2005
By Doug DeJesus
Patricio Pena, right, rolls wrapper leaf on a 62-foot-long cigar while his brother Ricardo assists him in trying to break the world's record for the largest cigar in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Saturday Jan. 8, 2005.
|
In the annals of cigar making, no one has ever produced a cigar quite like Patricio Pena's. Requiring 20 pounds of tobacco and 100 wrapper leaves, Pena's mega 62-foot-long cigar is now under consideration by the Guinness World Book of Records as the biggest stogie ever produced, topping Cuban cigarmaker Jose Cairo's 45-foot creation, which was rolled in 2003.
The feat was accomplished almost by chance. Pena, owner of Don Rey Cigars in San Juan, Puerto Rico, had no idea that a mega-cigar had already been created in Havana when he decided to make a 10-foot cigar for his own amusement. The cigar was featured on the popular Puerto Rican TV variety show No Te Duermes and it caused such a sensation among viewers that Pena decided to make an even longer creation of 20 feet. At that time, he thought he would be creating the biggest cigar in the world.
Once alerted to the fact that a Havana cigarmaker had made a cigar 25 feet longer, Pena decided to "pull out all the stops."
"I got sponsorships from Bacardi and Telemundo and decided that if we were going to break the record, we should do it in a conclusive fashion," said Pena. "That's when the idea of the 62-foot mega-cigar was born."
Shaping the mega-cigar took 1 hour and 20 minutes, after which the tobacco was allowed to sit and gain consistency for two days. Applying the wrapper leaves required the help of nine assistants and took more than an hour.
“The process of making a mega-cigar is practically the same as making any other cigar except that as time wore on, I kept feeling a lot of pressure in my hands. I had to push myself for the last 10 feet,” said Pena “Those last 10 feet were very grueling; my hands were very tired."
The Dominican-born Pena decided to make the cigar as a tribute to his homeland of Puerto Rico, where he has resided for the past three decades. "My current plan is that every year I will add ten feet to my record. If someone decides to break my record, I will definitely try to go above that and create a cigar that is much bigger than their record, by much more than ten feet," he said. “Of course, once our record stands, I know that it’s out there for it to be broken. If someone breaks it, Puerto Rico will not stay behind. We will challenge the record again.”
When asked about the possibility of smoking the cigar, Pena said, “I haven’t really thought about smoking it, but if our record is achieved, we will let the people sample it. We might as well, since I’ll be making a new one soon enough.”
Pena is still waiting to hear from Guinness about his cigar being officially declared the longest stogie on record.
Photo Courtesy AP Wide World Also in Cigar News:
|
Cigar Aficionado RSS Feed