Cigar Factory Trip: 2012 Drew Estate Cigar Safari
Last week, I was fortunate enough to travel to Nicaragua to take part in the Drew Estate Cigar Safari. There was a group of 10 guys from botl.org as well as some finance guys from Edward Jones and a couple who had won a trip at a Drew Estate event.
Day One: After catching 2 flights, we arrived in beautiful Managua, Nicaragua, and we were greeted at the airport by Pedro, who was our tour guide/interpreter for the trip. From the airport, we then went to a place called Restaurante El Bucanero for lunch, which has an amazing view of the Masaya Lagoon. At lunch, we were joined by Dr. Alejandro Cuenca, President of Joya de Nicaragua, his son, Jonathan Drew and his father Gary. We spent an hour or so getting to know everyone while enjoying a fabulous meal. After lunch, we got back on the bus and headed for the Drew Estate compound in Esteli. The bus ride was about 2 hours and we got a chance to see some incredible sites and get a glimpse of how the people of Nicaragua live. The first night was pretty casual, we had yet another great meal at Drew Estate and spent the evening smoking several Liga Privada cigars.
Day Two: Our second day in Nicaragua started with an early breakfast, and then we boarded the bus and headed out to the Padron tobacco fields. While in the fields, Jonathan Drew explained the process of growing tobacco and took us in to one of the tobacco barns where he explained the process of curing tobacco. From there, we got back on the bus and visited the Oliva Tobacco processing facility. We got a tour of a very large facility and they walked us through the steps of how tobacco was processed once cured and what the people that process the tobacco are looking for when separating tobacco for binder, filler and wrapper. This was quite an impressive process and they had massive amounts of tobacco being handled at this facility! After a quick lunch back at Drew Estate, we once again jumped on the bus and headed over to the Joya de Nicaragua factory. At JdN, we were greeted by Jose Blanco, VP of Joya de Nicaragua, he introduced himself to the group then we followed Mario, the production manager, into the factory. Mario walked us through all the steps at JdN, from the sorting of the leaves to the banding/boxing of the finished cigars. The part I enjoyed the most was Mario showing us the different characteristics of the leaves of the plant, the different textures and burn characteristics and how these factors need to be taken in to consideration when blending cigars. After the tour was over, we join Jose Blanco for a Cigar Tasting seminar. Mr. Blanco is very entertaining to listen to and we all learned how much influence the wrapper of a cigar can influence the taste/complexity of a cigar. We then headed back to DE, had yet another wonderful meal and spent the rest of the evening relaxing, telling stories and smoking more great cigars.
Day Three: Once again, the day started with a big breakfast then it was back on the bus and to the My Father factory. We were greeted by Don Jose “Pepin” Garcia and given a tour of his factory. This factory handled everything from curing/fermenting tobacco, sorting tobacco, rolling and aging cigars, boxing and banding them and then shipping out. Even the boxes the cigars are packed in and the cellophane the cigars went in were made on site! If I had to guess I would say there were over 200 rollers/bunchers on the main floor, a very impressive operation. Once the tour of the My Father factory was completed, we went into the conference room were Mr. Garcia took a few moments to tell us his personal story of how he came to be in the tobacco business and of his days in Cuba. An extremely amazing individual, and maker of some of the best cigars on the market. After leaving My Father, we stopped by one of the Drew Estate processing facilities and got to see the workers sorting tobacco and getting it ready for the factory. From there, it was back to Drew Estate for lunch.
Day Three Part Deux: I wanted to break this day into two parts because this was the most extensive part of the trip. After visiting the different factories, it was now time to tour Drew Estate, this by far was the biggest factory we had visited as far producing cigars. We got to go through every room and it started with the accounting office. From there we went in to the area where the Acid line of cigars was aged, banded and boxed. One of the first things you notice when walking around the factory is the amount of artwork adorning the walls, but I will cover more of that later. As we toured around the different rooms at Drew Estate, Jonathan walked us through every step of the way and you could tell his passion and enthusiasm for this business. He told us the story of how Drew Estate came to be and his high standard for the quality of the product he puts out. The tour ended with us in a conference room with a “menu” for tobacco. We learned about the various tobaccos and then got to smell the tobacco as well as see how it burned. We picked out the tobacco we wanted to use then JD went over our selections. Once we finished that part up the factory tour was over and we headed back to get a tour of the Subculture Studio. We got to meet Jessi Flores, who is an artist who works for Drew Estate. Jessi is responsible for all the artwork that comes out of the factory and all the artwork that was painted on the walls of the factory as well. His talent is nothing short of amazing and so is his story of his relationship with Jonathan. The two met in Nicaragua and from the friendly bantering between the two you could sense that these two were extremely close and Jessi’s influence on Drew Estate really shines through once you hear his story and see his work. Later that evening we were all gathered in the common area and were surprised when the folks at Drew Estate presented us with 10 cigars of “our blend”, everyone was extremely excited to get their cigars!
I have to say this was an experience of a lifetime, to visit the factories of some of my favorite cigar manufacturers was an absolute pleasure! It was interesting to see how each factory did things, the end result was the same but the process varied a little from factory to factory. The fine folks at Drew Estate took great care of us and the everything was top notch. There were a few personal moments that will last a lifetime and I have a new found respect for how hard all of these people work to create a product that gives us all a simple pleasure. Hat’s off to Jonathan Drew and all the people at Drew Estate for putting together a great experience for us all!
