In Retrospect…

Here I am again at 35,000 feet as we just took off from Honduras. Looking down through the clouds at the tropical mountains is incredibly surreal. While the country is quite poor by our standards, Lew says it has grown and modernized by 1000% in the past years. Thirty years ago he slept in a cement bunker when visiting and now it’s a 5 Star Hilton for us with every amenity and all of the pampering one can handle. It’s not so bad being the American swine once in a while, I’ll tell you that.

I have never eaten so much incredible food in my life. Having good meals together is a huge part of the Hispanic culture. Where at home we grab a slice of pizza or wolf down a sandwich, the factory workers bring individual pots filled with rice, chicken and pork and fresh fruit to accompany. For us big-wig types, we met in a private kitchen while three woman cooked a goddamned lunchtime feast that left us all stuffed right past dinner time. Somehow I still managed throw down a steak or two for dinner. Imagine that. The amazing thing is that almost everything is grown fresh on their property - fruit, veggies, beef, pork, and chicken. Yesterday they made the best lemonade we all ever had. And the secret was - it was made from “real” lemons, not a powdered mix. They made this Honduran guacamole with hard boiled eggs mixed with avocado, mayo and spices and I couldn’t stop. I guess great food and cigars are all you really need, right? OK, there might be another important factor I missed.

I gained such an appreciation for the cigar factory employees who work at an unbelievable pace for nine solid hours. My pictures kept coming out blurry because they go so fast. It amazed me that they do the same repetitious and monotonous work every single day-after-day while still staying motivated and productive. Those who sort the tobacco place the leaves into different piles for size, grade and color. Others slide the leaf through a machine that removes the stem and splits the leaf into two parts. Bunchers assemble the different leaves that make up a blend for a specific cigar and hand it off to the rollers. In shipping and receiving, thousands of pounds of boxed tobacco is received from the farms and sent for washing and fermenting. After the fermentation process it is bailed and warehoused for three to five years. They were actually working with the 2004 crop while I was there. And when the final cigars are done they get put into a deep freeze to kill the bugs, eggs, and larvae that naturally lives within the aging tobacco. The amount of hands that touch every single cigar made is almost inconceivable.

And yeah, I did go into the fermentation rooms and it’s about as pleasant as wearing a sandpaper jockstrap. There are 3 rooms and each one is more potent than the next. Room one I could handle but room two almost knocked me on my culo. The ammonia was so overpowering and I was choking and had to get out. They laughed at me like the douchebag, coddled American, and asked if I wanted to go to room three. I really don’t know how anyone can get used to that. If you’ve ever had smelling salts, imagine keeping that under your nose for half an hour.

Whoa!… We are actually flying over Cuba at this moment and I swear I saw a missile headed right at us! I let out a scream like a little girl and scared the bejezus out of everyone on the plane. But it seems it was just a hunk of kielbasa I brought along on the flight that must have gotten loose from the cargo bay. My bad. Great, the pilots are making me sit in the bathroom and Lew has just banned me from all intercontinental travel. It’s going to be tough getting back into his good graces. Wonder if I should tell them about that monkey trying to destroy the wing?

Well, just like that I’m back behind my home computer, typing out this drivel for all of you cigar weenies. The trip to the DR and Honduras was simply amazing, educational, and exciting. The people I met are unforgettable and Daniel Nunez is a gentleman like they don’t make anymore. He opened up his entire facility for me to experience and treated me like a family member. At dinner Lew and I had him laughing like hell with our sophisticated American humor. Of course I threw in a few Polack jokes for good posture. And, I found out that Little Johnny jokes down there are called Little Pepito jokes. Same bastid kid, different dialect. I really can’ thank all the good people from General Cigar enough for the trip of a lifetime and I would go again in a second.

Hint, hint… :)

Til next week guys,
Tommy Z.
JR Cigar Blog With the Zman