I've been lurking in this section for quite some time now and I really want to start rolling my own cigars. I just want some feedback before I start.
1. How does the flavor of your own hand rolled cigars compare to big brands (Pedron, my father, arturo fuente)
2. Does growing your own tobacco and going through the harvesting process compare to big names?
3. How much did your start up equipment cost and how much does your average stick cost?
Thank you!
TLDR: It's gonna cost more than you think, and it's not gonna taste as good as you'd hoped. But it's gonna be more fun and rewarding than you thought it would be.
1. Not nearly as good. I'd trade the 25 lbs of various WLT and LO leaf I have in stock right now for 1 lb of Padron. or 2 of My Father, or 4 of Fuente.
2. N/A
3. My start-up was like $30 for my board, $30 for my chaveta, $15 for a big bag of glue, and $40 for a mold. Plus tax and shipping. I still use all those things except that particular mold; and I finally ran out of that glue after 4000+ sticks.
The price of the stick is hard to calculate. It's like a dude who goes to one particular blackjack table in Vegas and somehow leaves the table $10 up one time, and tells you he's ten up, failing to add his lifetime of losses into the calculation. And it's hard to do the actual math anyway, because you'll buy bags of stuff that lie around for years and other bags you'll use up in a couple months, and stuff from both those bags goes into your cigars. Plus you'll get whole bags of leaf, which may list for $19.95 but really cost you $30+ after shipping, that suck and you won't use them at all after a couple leaves. You'll give it away, throw it away, use it as packing peanuts, store it on that shelf in your garage possibly until you die. Plus you can bias your answer in all kinds of ways: if you're trying to convince somehow it's cheaper to roll at home than to buy a decent cheap bundle, you could honestly dial the number down toward a dollar, if you bind and wrap with your cheapest filler leaf. Or if you want to give someone a dose of reality, where binder really costs $30 after shipping and wrap really costs $70, and filler is $25, and tons gets never used, you can say $3-4 and it ain't no lie.
My two bottom lines are this: most of us who stuck with this really love the hobby, and we now mostly smoke almost entirely our homerolls, even though we could easily afford more store-bought sticks. But there is something holistically more enjoyable about smoking something we created from scratch, even though it does not taste like a good store-bought. When I smoke a good store cigar, I feel like, "Wow, these things are really freakin good compared to what I can roll, in terms of the tobacco. Too bad it's just something I bought from a store, though, rolled by some guy making $7.25 an hour in a factory. This would be so much better in so many ways if I'd rolled it myself."
Leading to the second bottom line: you should get into this more to learn about cigar rolling than to save money or smoke superior tobacco. You won't get the superior tobacco, and you can hit nearly the same price points, or less, on bundle cigars.
Another cool thing about rolling your own is the way you can roll any size you want. If you're that kind of new modern dude who only wants the fat thing in your mouth, then this makes no difference since that's what's commercially on offer. But if you like to mix it up and do a petite corona now and then, or a panatella, or a lonsdale, or a short 47-ring, or a funky-shaped perfecto thing, then you can do that. You can roll it right now instead of waiting for your Cuban Mille Fleurs to arrive from Switzerland.
Rolling a good, solid cigar is difficult. However for my personal taste I love what I've been able to produce. 