Now where was I? Oh yes. So Thursday morning I got up at what I thought was a pretty early hour for being on vacation, maybe 8am, only to discover a text from Kevin saying he had already been to the Walgreens and gotten money from the atm there and also fruit and beverages. And the text was sent to me at 6:50am! Holy mackerel!
Well, I got myself together and made my own trip to the Walgreens and met Kevin downstairs on the front porch of the hotel, and we waited for Ade and Anthony to join us and for Berta and Emilio to come pick us up and take us on our adventure! Of course everything started a little later than we expected, but when you're as excited as we were every minute seems like an eternity waiting for the fun to start!
But before we knew it there we were in the back seat of a classy Mercedes on our way to Little Havana with Emilio driving and Berta Bravo the Guayabera Lady herself in the front passenger seat. What a thrill it was to meet her in the flesh. We were all talking a mile a minute and I can't even tell you what we talked about, but it was thrilling. Anthony and Ade were following us in their car.
The first stop was the Don Pepin Garcia factory on Calle Ocho and 11th Ave. Janny Garcia, daughter of the famed Don Pepin, was going to meet us there but was called away, so one of the managers of the factory showed us around. We saw their rollers working feverishly, rolling cigars I believe for the Aroma de Cuba brand. This Miami factory with 12 rollers (6 rows of two rollers each) crammed into a fairly standard storefront sized room represents a very small part of the total Garcia production - most of it is done in their factory in Nicaragua. But still, to us it was very significant, and we were excited to see real rollers, real craftspeople, not one or two, but a whole room filled with them, mostly women, all working together, creating cigars. Wow.
The manager pointed out to us one wiry middle-aged gentleman who was putting wrappers and caps onto Lanceros, a long slender cigar which is very popular nowadays, but is very difficult to roll. It is hard to create a satisfying, rich smoke in a thin cigar. This man we watched started rolling cigars when he was 13, in Cuba of course, and has been doing it for more than 50 years! And he is one of the few people living who knows how to properly make a Lancero. Ade asked how to say "magic hands" in Spanish, and when someone told him "manos de magica" he repeated it, and the man smiled and we all laughed. He stopped for a moment and shook some of our hands and we thanked him for letting us watch him work.
And the beginning of the generosity was already evident. Before we left the Don Pepin factory we were each asked what we liked to smoke, and then given three free Don Pepin cigars appropriate to our taste! I was ready to buy some cigars! I got some Cuban Classic robustos. There was also little cigar butt key chains hanging from a display, and when we said something about them, they started giving those out for free too (I didn't take one of them).
The next stop was the El Credito factory, where La Gloria Cubana cigars are made. Here the first room was a fairly large store, with every cigar in the La Gloria line in boxes on shelves all around us, including several I did not recall ever seeing in New York! We walked fairly quickly through that room to get to the important room, where the rollers were at work. This room was much larger than the one in the Garcia factory, so each roller had a lot more room. I didn't count how many there were, but I would guess it was more than 12, and there were a couple of rolling tables that were idle at that moment.
Kevin thought he recognized one of the rollers as a man who appears at the Las Vegas Big Smoke seminar on rolling cigars, teaching cigar lovers how to roll. He asked about it, and sure enough, that was the man. So we went over and let him know that Kevin had recognized him, and he was amused to learn this. We took some pictures. We also noticed a couple of the women rollers smoking cigars, and our host pointed out to us that while people are allowed to smoke cigars while they roll, they cannot wear cologne or perfume of any kind or anything that would affect the cigars, since tobacco readily absorbs odors of whatever is around it.
Before we left El Credito, Kevin and I had to buy some of these La Gloria shapes or vitolas that we never see in NYC, namely a big sized torpedo, maybe 6-1/2 by 60, called a Reserva Figurado. Kevin bought a couple maduros and I bought a couple with natural wrappers.
Our next stop was to be Berta's shop in Coral Gables, but first we needed a break. We were treated to some Cuban coffee and other refreshments. Anthony had a papaya and Ade had a Jugo de Cana or Guarapo, while Kevin just had coffee, a little thimble sized amount, a couple of sips of sweet strong Cuban coffee. I had both coffee and a Guarapo, and Berta got a kick out of the fact that when I repeated the name of the cane juice drink, I rolled the "r" - Guarrrapo.
On our way to Berta's shop in the car, Berta asked us why we had bought those particular La Gloria cigars, so we told her that we can't get them in NYC. So of course Berta called her friend who is the sales rep for La Gloria on speakerphone and had us tell her about these cigars we can't get in New York! This sales rep person said she would talk to whoever was responsible for New York and make sure we would be able to get those cigars there in the future.
(Of course, as I thought more about it, I remembered that I HAVE seen these cigars in NYC, but just once, about a year ago at Cigar Inn. I smoked one with a natural wrapper. A pretty nice, but strong cigar)
In the next post I will tell you about our second stop that day, at the Guayabera Lady's shop!
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