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  • BOTL UPCOMING MAINTENANCE

    Hi Everyone, as mentioned in my introduction post, BOTL needs quite a bit of updating, patching and whatever else I might come across. Over the next few weekends BOTL may be unreachable on occasion as I do migrations or updates, etc. Just be patient - we'll be back! I'll generally try to keep these maintenances until later in the evenings.

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  1. Gdaddy

    Interesting reads

    Very interesting. I live about an hour away. Once grown, they export the tobacco to Nicaragua for fermentation and rolling. "The 2015 crop of Florida Sun Grown tobacco is packed and inspected by the USDA and the Florida Department of Agriculture and ready for export to Nicaragua. Once the...
  2. Gdaddy

    Is using a mold for conformity a good thing?

    That's the spirit!! I'm curious to see how this goes. Please keep us posted. I would imagine you should improve after each roll. After 50 or so you should be producing a very good cigar. May the force be with you.
  3. Gdaddy

    Is using a mold for conformity a good thing?

    That's exactly correct. The leaves, by nature, have a great deal of inconsistency but when you put them in a mold you don't compensate for this variation and are compressing them all at the same pressure. The mold gives you the desired consistent appearance but at the expense of having some...
  4. Gdaddy

    Is using a mold for conformity a good thing?

    This is it exactly!! Maybe not fresh from the table but the joy of creation right there in front of you! Why do we want to be conformists and force the cigars to be a certain size and shape? So our cigars can look like what the big factories produce? We want them to be "pretty" just like...
  5. Gdaddy

    Pics of Your Sticks

    All this talk of using no mold so I got thinking about it and went and rolled a half dozen free hand cigars using no mold. They really didn't take any more time to complete and I'm happy with them. I'm putting my molds aside for a while and am going to work on this technique more. Removed the...
  6. Gdaddy

    Pics of Your Sticks

    Here a video from Cigar Obsession where he tests the 'Perfect draw' vs the 'Modus'. It seems to be a very good analysis of the problem of a plugged cigar...
  7. Gdaddy

    Pics of Your Sticks

    I just watched the video and they flat stack them into the Lieberman. No 'entubado'.
  8. Gdaddy

    Pics of Your Sticks

    Hmmmm.... I see Lieberman bunching machines on every table. Granted, no molds but these are machine aided cigars.
  9. Gdaddy

    Pics of Your Sticks

    Great post MarcL. Been thinking about this for a while. It seems the best smoking cigars are hand rolled using proper pressure and let the tobacco determine where it wants to be. Even the shape of the cigar can be sculpted to whatever you want. The use of a mold introduces an element of...
  10. Gdaddy

    Proper humidity level and it's affect on flavor...

  11. Gdaddy

    Proper humidity level and it's affect on flavor...

    I know this topic has been hashed around for years. The Cigar authority did a show last week where they smoked an over humidified cigar compared to an under humidified. Then they smoke a properly humidified @70%. Mr. Jonathan does an excellent explanation of how relative humidity can vary with...
  12. Gdaddy

    Looking for info on current WLT leaf batches...

    I didn't enter this contest. I was away for a while. It's probably too late to make an entry. To answer the question... a blend that I very much enjoy is a simple 50/50 blend of WLT corojo viso with LO Dominican seco. 1 full leaf of each wrapped in 1/2 leaf seco binder. No ligero. None. The...
  13. Gdaddy

    Adventures in home rolling

    In this video it appears she doesn't remove most of the center vein. She does pull out the bottom part of the stem but leaves the rest of it to be rolled.
  14. Gdaddy

    Interesting reads

    I can't see this. Error... "Forbidden"
  15. Gdaddy

    Adventures in home rolling

    Center stem in or removed?
  16. Gdaddy

    Pics of Your Sticks

    Three questions...What's that wrapper Jay? What are the green flecks on the mouth end? What happened to your thumb?
  17. Gdaddy

    Pics of Your Sticks

    I have a few of those beautiful bands lying around so I threw it on there to get the full effect.
  18. Gdaddy

    Pics of Your Sticks

    This is the Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper from LO. The veins are slightly larger than the Mata Fina but much smaller than the Ecuadorian seco wrapper for example. If you want less lumps in your cigar start with a leaf that has... fewer lumps. I found it a joy to work with and it arrived in near...
  19. Gdaddy

    Leaf Deals

    I hope everything works out well.
  20. Gdaddy

    Adventures in home rolling

    Getting a little Shakespeare-ish tone in there. "Who is alive; that is not"... but rather to be or not to be THAT is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To...
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