I think that 'something' is probably the cruelty part. Or maybe it's the fact the Amish are supposed to be kind, gentle, and loving Christians. Fact is though, they aren't the only ones running puppy mills. Luckily there are many organisations and tens of thousands of compassionate people who donate time and effort towards animal rescue.
The powers that be might take it all away
Together we burn, together we burn away
Uncle Tupelo
Yo unk- check yo-self that's Pennsylvania Broadleaf, north carolina,kentucky, and georgia I aint hard to get along with but if you need a foe...
What is it in polock?
I found this old thread here. It's about a subject which has fascinated me for some time now. Especially where a poister opines: "...a unique taste is what an American puro would need to succeed". I think there is such a unique flavor. It's a little bit of leather, black bread toast, and tea.
Take, for example, the John Hay. They have a store in Intercourse PA. John Hay do offer a number of cigars rolled in Latin American sweatshops for seven or eight bucks a pop. But they also offer one buck cigars rolled by FX Smiths Sons in McSherrystown PA from Amish broadleaf. Toasty leather. FX Smiths Sons used to roll all of Muniemaker's cigars until Muniemaker moved to Central America. FX still makes all of FD Graves cigars. I haven't tried any of those. Mostly homogenized, I think. Sold in New England.
All these cigars are rolled by machine, of course, because here in this country, hey, we started making everything by machine a hundred years ago. Labor saving devices. Efficient. I just don't understand the objection to machines one bit. Hey, this computer keyboard is made by machine. The jeans I'm wearing were machine made. The beer here in my hand was bottled by machine. Why cigars have to be hand rolled is a mystery to me. Doesn't make them smoke any better.
Listen: FX Smiths Sons has been around for a century and a half. Five generations. Switched to machinery in the second generation. The story goes that twenty years ago Cigar Aficionado held a competition. Someone talked old man Smith into entering his best. He sent CA one of his Smithdale Perfecto Oscuros. Didn't tell them anything about how it was made. Out of six hundred some entries, that humble cigar rolled in Pennsyltucky by machine from Amish tobacco came in fifth! It wasn't until a couple months later that CA discovered the Smithdale was machine made. And they were righteously pissed. Called up old man Smith dropping F bombs. Irate. But why? A good smoke is a good smoke. Why does quality need to be made by hand in a foreign sweatshop?
Panacea takes that route, and it costs more. A company named Flat Bed Cigars has all their Panacea cigars rolled by hand in the Dominican. Panacea Green Label is PA Broadleaf, very leathery, very toasty. Ship it all the way down, all the way back. They run eight or nine bucks a pop. Light one of them in one hand and light an FX Smith Tuscorora in the other, and tell me if there's a difference.
There's also Avanti cigar factory in Wilkes-Barre. Somebody who likes those rumpled up Italian type infused cigars has to tell you whether they are any good at all. I can't. Anisette! Ick! I can't stand them. All Avanti tobacco comes from Tennessee and Kentucky.
I just smoked my first Marsh Wheeling a couple weeks back. Reminded me of the old Lucky Strike cigarettes, from back when LSMFT. Darn mild flavor for a cigar. Where the FX Smithdale Maduro would be black bread toast, this March Stogie would be white bread toast.
Both of these are the kind of cigars that you could easily chain smoke all day, 20 a day, like old Mark Twain or Sigmund Freud. Cheap, tasty, and with a clean finish.
Try an American cigar. There's a heck of a selection and they are good smokes.
Unmitigated risk aversion is the new Puritanism; complete with witch hunts funny outfits and humorless preachers thundering doom. The Deity is Safety; Satan is a Lawyer; but the object is the same: to suck the life out of life and tell you how to live it.
I will not disagree that sometimes "hand made" is not the best. We know a few humidor makers who make complete crap - the Chinese pressboard machine made humidors selling on eBay are far better quality.
However - machine made does not automatically mean quality. As a matter of fact, all machine made cigars I've tried are - at best - "okay". But - the best cigars I've smoked we're hand rolled. The more skilled the roller - the better the cigar. And I've dissected machine made cigars and saw what was packed in it - clearly someone swept the floor of the tobacco factory and packed it into the cigar...
There's a damned good reason cigars are still hand rolled in "sweatshops" (your words not mine). Because those hand rolled cigars are truly the best. A skilled roller knows how to pick and pack/bunch the tobacco leaves, apply the proper pressure to the binder, and - most important - skillfully apply the wrapper. If it's done properly - it's a masterpiece.
If you truly want cheap smokes - why not take up cigarette smoking. Those are machine made and are a fair piece cheaper than even machine made cigars...
There are serious differences between mass-market non-tobacco ingredient using machine made cigars and cigarettes and the cigars that are machine made from all tobacco leaf. The differences begin with the tobacco varieties used, and continue right on through the harvest-curing-fermentation processes up to the additions of chemicals-curing agents-flavors-burn enhancers, etc. The comparision is not valid between the two products imo.
I am in no way debating the overall quality of the experience between smoking hand-rolled premium cigars and a machine made 100% tobacco cigar. I don't have any machine made cigars in my stash.
JC Newman machine rolls their "Factory Throwouts" in Miami from tobacco left over from their Latin American hand rolling factories. Same ingredients, just not whole leaves. If you can get past the "throwouts" name, they are some tasty smokes. Twenty three bucks gets you a bundle of twenty.
The question is: What are you really after? Good smoke or a decadent experience? It's like pups -- Do you need to impress yourself with the pedigree and price of your pampered pug, or are you content with a boon flop eared companion? When I was a kid, we got our pups from a neighbor, sired by a fence jumper. Only papers they ever had were newspapers over the snout to house train them. Loved them all the same. Got some darn good dogs that way. Old Duke could share my ice cream any day. More money does not always equal more better. You need to uncouple price from pleasure.
Yes, even among the imported hand rolled premiums. The cigars I buy by the box to always keep stocked in my humidor include the Ave Maria (Crusader), the Torano 1916 Cameroon, and the Fonseca Arana. The Fonseca runs a mere $35 a bundle of 20, but is in no way an inferior smoke to the other two, which run a buck twenty a box.
But we're getting off track. We are talking about American cigars here. What with OSHA, minimum wage, cost of living, overtime, health insurance, and all the rest, I don't see how you going to get a hand rolled pampered twelve buck gem. But you can get a darn good smoke made by machine. And you will pay less.
Fancy bands are nice. But they don't smoke worth a damn.
Unmitigated risk aversion is the new Puritanism; complete with witch hunts funny outfits and humorless preachers thundering doom. The Deity is Safety; Satan is a Lawyer; but the object is the same: to suck the life out of life and tell you how to live it.
I got to hit this Palma cigar shop once the weather thaws. Looks like they have tons of American brands. My kind of meat. Thanks for the link.
Unmitigated risk aversion is the new Puritanism; complete with witch hunts funny outfits and humorless preachers thundering doom. The Deity is Safety; Satan is a Lawyer; but the object is the same: to suck the life out of life and tell you how to live it.
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