Oh, now I see this! lol "Great minds..." Sorry for the redundant post.
Man if you think those are ugly as sin I don't know what to call my first rolls. Lol. Those Look damn good to me brother!First cigars I ever rolled
A year ago when I started rolling I kept one cigar from every batch I rolled, from early March 2015 through about late May, with the intention of smoking each one after it got one year of age on it. Now that time has come and it's time to start burning these bad boys. Objectively they're ugly as sin but subjectively they're beautiful. I'll be sad to see'em go.
I'll help, @Marc_L has an awesome RG and tripa number cheat sheet somewhere.... i think it's 3-4 depending on leaf size
@smokepoleobsession @BrewinHooligan Thanks. I'll quote Billy Withers: "Y'all are crazy, but I love you anyway."
Thank you! I feel like I have found my personal Cuban version of Mr Miagi
That is so fucking awesome!Got home from Señor Willy's place only to find my wife had just been stung by a scorpion. We are now at urgent care so she can get some pain meds. Having been stung twice myself I can empathize. The bark scorpion gives the most intensely painful sting.
To say I enjoyed myself tonight is an understatement. He looked through my rolling kit. He told me my metal sheet I have been using as a rolling surface "is no good" and gave me a wood square with a tile top to use. He looked at my ulu knife and said "is no good, I make you chaveta". He looked through my leaf and said "is good". He asked what I wanted work on and I said capping. He removed the wrappers from a few sticks he had rolled for an event yesterday and wrapped a few then had me wrap a few. Then I asked him how he bunches his cigars and he uses a semi accordion bunch. He had me practice a few bunches and it was intimidating having a pro watch over my shoulder. He remembered I had inquired about corojo wrapper, went into his leaf storage and grabbed me out about a half pound of Habano 2000 that is so damn pretty (will take pics when I get home) and he showed me how to de-vein the wrapper like I have seen the Cubans do in countless YouTube videos. He wants me to practice what we went over and come back next week to roll again. He wants me to start working with him at the rolling events he does to make some extra $. He doesn't speak much English so I need to brush up on my Spanish to communicate better.
Now for some equipment porn:
Stacks and stacks of molds
His home-made presses use hydraulic jacks and bungee cords.
One room has been converted to a temperature controlled humidor to store rolled cigars and he has another room for leaf storage.
Here is the master prepping some filler leaf from the container to roll some bunches.
I wasn't able to discuss purchasing leaf from him but he mentioned giving me some CT shade next week.
Here is what all he sent me home with today minus the wrapper. The paper wrapped bunches I will wrap and take back to him to inspect. The two shade wrapped sticks are ones he had me re-wrap.
He smoked one of the sticks I brought him and seemed to enjoy it. Today was a good day fellas.
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnnn!
Yeah, no joke. The dude is Cuban trained with at least 50 years experience by now.Yeah, the scorpions here are no joke. I have been stung twice. The last time was 4 years ago and made my whole body numb for like 3 days and my sense of taste was fucked for a week. I still don't have feeling on the top of that toe thanks to the neuro-toxin those things hit you with.
This H2K wrapper is dead sexy.
He doesn't put his wrapper into as high a case as I have been. He also can roll a bunch in the blink of an eye and I can tell you they sure aren't pretty going into the mold but you can't tell that from the finished product. I am doing some serious re-evaluation of my methods and won't be working so hard to make pretty bunches. I will also be investing in a tuck cutter as soon as funds allow
That's exactly right, the fact that he is willing to teach me and wants me to work with him is mind blowing. All the things he kept putting in my rolling kit has left me in shock. Work better be slow tomorrow so I can get some good practice in. Going be rolling my ass off using his methods so I don't look like a bumbling mongoloid when I go back next week
Dude I can't believe how much better you've gotten. That is insane. That culebra looks perfect.More culebra practice, this time I tied it with the midrib from some wrapper leaf I had just prepped and got an extra braid in this one.
