- 7 months ago
A workshop for a hands-on experience that blends skill, culture, and real conversation
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00How y'all doing? Okay, okay, okay. So I get through with my introductions, then we're getting
00:05right into talking the soul food and the luxury tapestry of cigar making. I'm a chief of new
00:11city, I'm in Ra. I hail from the north side of Jackson, Mississippi, you know what I'm saying,
00:16the birthplace of America's music. I currently now reside in uptown New Orleans, and it's been
00:22a blessing. So we'll get through the brief introduction of who I am and what I do. I'm a
00:26tobacco farmer, cigar maker. Currently, I've been professionally doing this craft now for
00:33a little over 13 years. My family has been growing tobacco 139 years. So we've started
00:39growing Virginias and cabin dishes, and that was used in some of the more popular pipe tobaccos
00:47like Blackamount. Anybody heard of Blackamount? Okay, cool, cool. Newports, Camels, Benson Hedges
00:55for my people who are a little more seasoned. Y'all know Benson Hedges, Cools. And currently
01:00now, I took the business about 10 years ago and decided I wanted to press it forward. So
01:06currently, I'm the tobacconist of the Backwoods brands. Anybody familiar with Backwoods cigars?
01:11So I'm the tobacconist of Backwoods. I've been a personal cigar roller for a numerous amount
01:18of very important people, some that I love more than others. I'm Cam Newton. I did Jalen Hurts.
01:25I've got a chance to roll cigars for a sitting president, a couple governors, a crown prince,
01:32you know, and some foreign dignitaries. So I've traveled around more like a cigar valet or a butler.
01:37So think of me as your personal Jeffrey, if you will, but just tobacco related. All right, so y'all ready
01:43to take a little ride with me? Okay, okay, cool. Anybody new to New Orleans or first time in the
01:49city of New Orleans? Okay. Well, give it up for yourself. You know what I'm saying? Welcome,
01:53welcome, welcome, welcome. Tobacco, man, just like any other crop, black people have had
02:03a special, special, special part in cultivating and continuing their legacy. Most people,
02:11have anybody got an experience with their grandfather smoking pipe tobacco? Anybody?
02:17Raise your hand so I can see you. Okay, okay, okay. So a few people have to remember those memories.
02:22So for this reference point, New Orleans is really, really known for food. So we think about food,
02:28jazz. So we're going to use, we're going to talk about soul food. So pretty much this is soul food.
02:33I'm going to start off with a story about Stephen, Stephen Slade. Stephen Slade is the person who we know
02:40who came up with bright tobacco. All right, that tobacco is the tobacco currently used in all
02:46cigarettes you know anybody smoke. Anybody you know smoke pipe tobacco currently to this day,
02:52Stephen Slade is who came up with that. Stephen Slade was on the Slade Plantation, which was the
02:58competitor to what you now know to be RJ Reynolds, which makes Newports and Camels. And then now you're
03:07Winston, Vincent Hedges, and all of the cigarettes you know. He was the most revolutionary figure in
03:13the black tobacco space. With what he figured out how to do, in essence, created the foundation for
03:21the smoking experience that's one of the largest imports and exports in the world. So, and we got
03:27black people to thank for that. You know, and it's just like any other situation, tobacco and cropping,
03:33and share cropping, and farming the land is one of those things that we specialize in.
03:38So now, when we think of soul food, the particular conversation that's of most importance for me to
03:44share with y'all about this workshop is the conversation of blending. Blending, I would give
03:49y'all that conversation is very, very similar to grandma's favorite dish. My grandma just passed two and a
03:56half weeks ago. Her favorite dish was macaroni and cheese. Grandma loved macaroni and cheese. Now,
04:04all macaroni and cheese generally had the same ingredients, but all food prepared by the different
04:10person hits different. Same thing with the tobacco. So I want you, as we listen to the conversation
04:16about blending, I want you to think about your family's recipe, your family's love, the things that
04:23you enjoy doing to romanticize a big piece of black history. So the next time you fire up a cigar,
04:30I want you to think about black history. What you see currently here is a tomahawk. It's my fifth
04:36generation grandfather's tomahawk. Chief Falling Cloud. Fifth generation grandfather's a Choctaw Indian.
04:42I know most black people grew up at some point in time saying, I got a little Indian in me, or my
04:46grandma's some Indian. Would y'all agree with that? Okay, so now in Mississippi, that's a very, that's a very
04:51real thing. And for a lot of us, it's a very real thing. So now the Cohiba ritual. Anybody heard of
04:56the cigar brand Cohiba before? Okay, the Cohiba ritual is actually the lighting of the cigar. All
05:04right. And the shaman during this time who orchestrated the tribe, we would consider him
05:09like an evangelist or a reverend in this case. It's called the Bahike. The lighting of the cigar was
05:15supposed to be the smoke traveling around. We're supposed to give fortune to see if we're going to have
05:20good harvest. We wasn't going to have famine amongst the tribes, but also to spread healing,
05:25to convene with the ancestors, to speak positivity, or as a mode of prayer. So anytime you're seeing
05:30somebody smoking, in most cases, we're watching people. If you done had a stressful day, we go
05:35outside, we light up a cigar. Somebody done pissed you off, you go see the cigar. You done had a cool day
05:41sitting back watching the game, having you a cold brew, you fire up the cigar. You and your lady having a
05:46nightcap, get you a little Merlot, fire you up a cigar or whatever herbal tapestry of choice that may be
05:52that has some kind of tobacco or natural grown flower in it. And that's the ritual piece. And I don't
05:57want us to kind of forget that. So as we start thinking about that going into stuff, my number one
06:02rule when smoking cigars, making cigars, blending cigars, anything concerning the tobacco from seed to cigar
06:09is a very rudimentary formula. The who, what, when, where, and why. Can somebody repeat that for me?
06:17Okay, who? Who is the person partaking? So in a cigar lounge, I always think about before I
06:24recommend a cigar, who's the person I'm talking to? Am I talking to a former law enforcement
06:31professional? Am I talking to a current attorney? Am I talking to a beautiful sister? Am I talking to an
06:35older brother, older sister? You know, all of these type of cultural differences and nuances matter
06:41when you're getting ready to offer them a selection that's supposed to pair with their spirit. What?
06:45What's the occasion? What are we celebrating on today? Are we celebrating a graduation? Are we
06:51celebrating a marriage? Are we celebrating the anniversary? Are we mourning the loss of somebody?
06:56And it's just a sentimental thing. Where? Where's the location? Is it in a cigar lounge? Is it a golf course?
07:03Is it your, your partner's garage? Is the front porch? Is it in Cancun on the yacht or, you know,
07:08on the beach? No, so then where, and the most important thing is the why. Why are we doing this?
07:14Are we doing it for a good time? Are we doing it to network? Are we doing it to relax? Are we doing it
07:19to work and give honor to our ancestors? Are we doing it to recalculate a moment? This is the thing that we
07:25think about when we putting cigars together. I know a lot of people, when they think about smoking cigars,
07:30they're like, oh, hey, well, that's a man thing, or that's too strong, or only old people do it. No,
07:37this is a cultural thing. Black people, I'm telling y'all on today, it belongs to our ancestors,
07:42and if we don't participate, we'll lose it. If we don't participate, we'll lose it. When we putting
07:49blends together, that's the part that I wanted to speak on. I gave y'all the backstory, the cultural
07:55implants. We'll call that for natural ingredients. We'll say we're trying to build a good root here
08:00for some gumbo. Right now, we got the rice. We got a couple spices laid out. Now, we're going to get
08:07into some technical pieces about the blending process. Now, when we're getting ready to think
08:14about blends, again, I told you that who, what, when, where, and why is the most important thing
08:19when you're considering this and the legacy of the food, all right? So, we got natural ingredients
08:26and cigars. So, the cigars are made in three parts, wrapper, binder, and filler. So, now,
08:33I'm going to need y'all to walk with me because I want, I'm going to give y'all some, I don't want to
08:37say they're X-rated analogies, but they are more like parental guidance, okay? Are y'all with me? Okay,
08:46cool. So, filler. This will be filler here. This is what you would, if you're rolling up or busting
08:54down a J or a Dutch or a Philly, this will be your end of the guts, okay? But in this case,
09:00we don't throw this out. We smoke this, okay? These are your filler tobaccos. This will be
09:06the birthday soup, okay? Every single filler tobacco has a country of origin. Any wine or coffee
09:14people out here for me? Raise your hand. Okay? So, now, y'all think about country of origin when
09:18y'all considering what y'all going to drink, okay? Same thing with tobacco, all right? If you want
09:24something more mild, we start thinking about the Connecticut River Valley. This has glacier soil.
09:30This is more, y'all ever heard the song, Cooling Waters? You know, okay, all right. Cooling Waters.
09:35Waters from grandma, you know what I'm saying? Grandma's where? Cool, mild, very calming, relaxing,
09:42pleasant, very cool on the aroma. The body is not too hard. It's very mellow, all right? And we start
09:50thinking about stuff that's more robust, strong. We start looking towards, you know, Mexico. We start
09:57thinking about the Carolinas, Kentucky, you know, with bourbon. Those tobaccos have more of a pepper,
10:06a black pepper, a stronger, more robust, all right? So, y'all know when you think about Kentucky,
10:10we start thinking about bourbon. But then also, you start thinking about countries like Costa Rica,
10:16Honduras, who have volcanic soil. And when we think sulfur, we start thinking hot, strong,
10:23okay? So now, then you could go to Nicaragua. You can go to, you could go to Indonesia. So,
10:29when you start thinking about, like, Indonesia or Indonesian bazooka, we start thinking about
10:33oriental spice. So maybe your chili powder, paprika, you know, red pepper, you know,
10:41thyme, you know, different types of oriental spices. So now, when you take all of those different
10:46tobaccos from different countries of origin, and you start to mix them together, what you get is a
10:51nice little concoction. So now, with two tobaccos, you can make a couple different blends. So let's say
10:57you're watching the game, and you want a cigar for your wife, and she's drinking a little Merlot.
11:01So, when you start thinking about these things, you want to think about the whole situation,
11:06again, the who, what, when, where, and why, and that'll decide what you smoke. So now, if I'm thinking
11:10about this, making a blend with only two tobaccos, I got two fillers, then I got the wrapper and
11:15binder, we'll get there. You do things in threes, romanticize it. The cigar itself, the cocktail and or
11:22meal, and some kind of third element. That could be chocolate, that can be cheesecake, that can be
11:27ginger, that can be fruits, that can be certain dried fruits. You know, you always want to do
11:34it in threes, and that's just the reason why I suggest that. You want to kind of take your
11:38palate on the ride, and the fillers is kind of the base of that conversation. It's like somebody just
11:44giving you some gumbo, and they ain't put, they ain't season the meat. They just threw the ingredients
11:48in the pot and gave you a, they say, it looked like gumbo, but it don't smell like gumbo. It don't kind of
11:53move in the, in the dish like gumbo. That's sort of thing you can get from the smoke. So now, I'll
11:58kind of break them down. Between the fillers, we got Seiko. Seiko, think aroma, keeping it base,
12:06aroma. All right, like your favorite cologne. Any, any brother got a favorite cologne? What's your
12:11favorite cologne, brother? Say it again? Oud? Okay, for Corey. Okay. Glory. Okay, glory. Okay,
12:21okay, cool. Okay, say oud. All right, so when I think oud, I think pepper. I think tobacco,
12:28uh, sandalwood, uh, you know, things like that, okay? So Seiko would be like the, the immediate
12:35nose element, what touches, what touches your nose. And just like the who, what, when, where, and why,
12:40we're trying to activate the five senses. A cigar scent just tastes good. It should smell good. It should
12:45feel good, you know, and it should be able to captivate all kind of elements. Just like when your,
12:50your, your cologne has a nice room note and it spreads about, the tobacco smoke should have the
12:55same thing. The smoke is telling a particular story. It's telling a story of origin. It's telling
13:00the story of the blenders deciding to make the craft a certain experience out for you to have.
13:05And that's the type of thing every time you light up a cigar or smoke, period. So even for my people
13:09who, you know, smoke the J, the herbal tapestry, I, you know, I indulge from time to time. All of those
13:14experiences are exactly the same. And these experiences can not only translate outside of
13:20cigar smoking, it can translate into how you shave, how you, how you do your hair, how you put on your
13:26makeup, how you tie your tie in the morning. It's just taking the time to consider a little bit of
13:31consideration. So Seiko, now we're going to go to Lajero. Lajero, that's spice, combustion,
13:36if you will. If, for all my grill masses out there, that's like making sure you got, you got the
13:42coals set up right. You know what I'm saying? On the grill. We don't want one side burning hotter
13:46than the other. We don't want to have lit coals on the grill. All right, cool. This would be for
13:50combustion here. Now it also plays an underlying taste. If I had to compare it to grilling food,
13:58it's like smoking meats, like smoking some Boston butts or something. You know what I'm saying? Like
14:02smoking meats. But it also is responsible for combustion. Are y'all following me so far? Okay.
14:08So now them two tobaccos, one is for aroma, one is for combustion and strength. But when you start
14:15mixing them together, you start having a moving experience. So now we move to the second part of
14:20the tobacco process, which is the binder. Now my binder, a binder and wrapper can be interchangeable.
14:27My analogy for that is for my fitness sisters who are trying to get into a fitness,
14:33waist trainer or, you know what I'm saying? Or, you know, a corset if you're going on a night on the
14:38town. But my brothers, I know brothers are wearing like skims and stuff now to try to hold it together.
14:43You know what I'm saying? You know, or some compression shorts when you're in the gym or,
14:47you know, any kind of thing to hold it together was what we were we trying to do here. And those and
14:53those look like this. So if you haven't seen a whole tobacco leaf, this is kind of what it looks
14:58like. Can you see from where I'm at? All right. So whole tobacco leaf. This is what you call a binder
15:05and it can be interchangeable with a wrapper. Now, in this case, this this particular leaf looks well
15:10enough where it can be used as a wrapper as well. And the wrapper is the outside. Fellas, it's your
15:15wife in a nice dress. You bought a full night out on the town. Nice pair of heels. You know what I'm
15:20saying? When she got when she all dolled up. Sisters, it's your fellow when he come out there in a
15:24three piece tuxedo. You've been trying to come or a suit. You've been trying to convince him to wear
15:28since Father's Day. The watch you bought him last year or the tie. You know what I'm saying? It's
15:32when you really got that shit on. You feel what I'm saying? All right. That's the wrapper. That's
15:36what normally first catches our attention inside of a cigar lounge. When we walk into cigar lounges,
15:41most people shop based on how stuff look. Do the label catch their eye? Do the box catch their eye?
15:47Does the wrapper have a sheen to it? You know, can they smell it if it's not in cellophane? Again,
15:53activating all of those senses. Okay. So now we got the wrapper binding and filler,
15:58and we got the two ingredients. Now I'm going to actually show y'all the process of making the cigar.
16:04It would be said, so we coming out for any time I can get a chance to talk about black women in a
16:11positive way. I always take the opportunity to do that. The most growing and powerful group of people
16:20in the cigar in the premium cigar space at this current time on all numbers, MMC, mass market cigars,
16:27that's premium cigars, rising cigar influencers, podcasters is black women. Most of the companies
16:34that make the cigars in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, these are sisters in Cuba,
16:42the most prominent, some of the most best cigar rollers are black women. So give it up for black
16:48women one time. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Very, very, very big deal.
16:53And then there's a technical science to that, because when you think about soul food, you start
16:57thinking about Big Mama in the kitchen. Again, we going back to the soul food piece. We ain't losing it.
17:02When we start thinking about soul food, we start thinking about Big Mama cooking up her favorite dish.
17:06And in the cigar community, both blending and crafting the cigars, there's a certain level of
17:12finesse that's needed in order to kind of captivate this piece and the dexterity on the hands. Now,
17:19some people, I do this a lot for different people, as I told y'all before, but this is probably the least
17:26important part to me. Again, the stuff that I mentioned first was the most important part,
17:32the blending. Now, the crafting of the cigars is how you present a final product to someone,
17:38but the tobacco itself, you know, is the part that's most important. Now, before I move into,
17:45or as I get ready to move into this piece, I wanted to also be making, to make it known that tobacco,
17:51you know, for my people who are, you know, more spiritual practitioners, you know, these are great
17:56offerings to, you know, your ancestors. And one day, you know, you ever go out to the, to the grave,
18:00y'all, and y'all see somebody pull out one for the dead homies. They put a cigar or something by
18:04the grave site. This is a, this is things that I have been accustomed to doing my entire life.
18:10But also tobacco has been used as medicine, which is why it has to be treated very properly the entire
18:15time. From the time you get it out the ground to the time you light it up, it's a, it's a love
18:19relationship. Because this type of stuff, I use it for chicken pox. When I had chicken pox as a kid,
18:25grandmother put me in a tub of hot water, threw tobacco leaves in there, the natural oil from it,
18:31is what she used to cure me of the chicken pox. I have bad eczema. Anybody got eczema out here?
18:36Anybody got eczema? Tobacco can be used for eczema. You take the damp leaves, just like you would do
18:42with a bee sting, rub your skin down, put coconut oil on it. It'll stop the flares. I guarantee you that.
18:48Give it a shot sometime. You know, tobacco is also, if you dip, you know, anybody who dip,
18:53when you chew, when you chew, doing colds, it brings mucus up. You know, we've used this for
18:58headaches. We used it for heartburn. We've used it for all kinds of skill, skin elements, arthritis.
19:05You know, some people soak this, soak your feet up in hot water and vinegar and all of that. You can
19:11soak tobacco leaves and put your feet in it. The natural astringent and antiseptic, poor swelling,
19:16removes excess fluid. So when you think about this plant, man, this thing is, we grow everything.
19:22So why not? God got a particular plant for everything, and this is one of those. So let's
19:26get to the part about actually making this cigar. And at some point, once I'm done kind of showing
19:31this process, then if somebody want to come up here and try to make their own, we can definitely do
19:37that. And then if y'all got some questions, I would love to take those. So now, again, when I told
19:44y'all, it's the three parts of the cigar. What we're doing here, this is the whole leaf. We want
19:48to actually devein the leaf. All right. So this particular stem that y'all see up in the middle,
19:54I don't know how far y'all can see it from here. That stem can be used for like burning.
20:02This here can be used for like burning outside to keep mosquitoes away. You know what I'm saying?
20:08This is the type here I ever heard of snuff before. All right. This is what snuff is made out of.
20:13They take the stems and put it with like a Himalayan salt and like cinnamon
20:22and grind it up into a fine powder. And that's when you see people kind of hit the,
20:25you know, you know, on their nose, it's snuff. Really, really good for removing stuff in your
20:29sinuses and stuff too. You know what I'm saying? But if you braid these up and sit them outside,
20:34man, it keeps all kind of insects away from your yard, keep them out your garden. So knowing what we
20:38do if you're growing stuff, I throw these out in the yard, throw them out in the garden, keeps all
20:44kind of bugs away, man. That's a beautiful, beautiful thing. All right. So that's that. You
20:47de-stem it. All right. So now again, when we say we laying out a foundation in order to make the cigar,
20:55we talking about now having the binder there. All right. So here's a crazy analogy. I know it's
21:01going to suck y'all. So please forgive me. But this is how I learned when I was in Cuba. So you won't
21:05forget it. When you see the leaves, there's a light side in the inside. You can see it is more lighter
21:13on the inside. It is on the outside. The analogy that they gave us was a dark skin outside, light
21:19skin inside. It sucked, but this is coming from a position of a lot of hardship. So people make sure
21:26that the lessons are kind of taught to you in ways that you won't forget it. All right. So I think y'all
21:31ain't gonna forget that, huh? Okay. All right. Cool. Then the job was done. All right. So now we
21:37laying out the binder. Now that the binder is laid out, this is again, like rolling a burrito or
21:45making a taco in a way. So you make sure that the leaves here. Anybody good at geometry in here?
21:53Me neither. All right. It's the first time in a long time when I started making cigars,
21:58the actual angle cutting became a actual thing. All right. So now, and so I can explain this knife
22:05too. This is a civetta. Somebody can y'all say it out loud for me. Civetta. Okay. It's a cutting knife.
22:13It's not a slicing knife. I want you to think more of a pendulum. So a rock, a rock knife. Very,
22:19very sharp. We'll take your fingers off. So when you so when you do come up here, whoever chooses to come
22:25up here to try to make the cigar, you want to be sure to keep your hands as far away from this
22:31directly while you slicing because you will take your finger off. All right. It's very, very sharp.
22:36And normally before we start rolling, I normally, you know, kind of sharp sharpen them on, you know,
22:41a little, little stone and all. All right. So there we go. Civetta. So now here's the blending part.
22:47The part that I love. Seiko. What I want is fall. I want a nice fall day, but I wanted to smell like
22:58like autumn, like a fresh rain that came down and it got that little, you know, you can smell like old
23:04leaves kind of falling, old, wet leaves. I want that whole autumn smell. When I think of Seiko,
23:10this is a Dominican Seiko here. So gives you a lot of sandalwood, sandalwood, maybe toasted oats type
23:19of smell to it. Naturally, this is part of my blend. That's what I'm going for. That's the
23:25nasal experience I'm thinking about here, because what I want to think about is a good memory with
23:30my grandma. And my grandma used to go to fall harvest all the time, go to Jackson State football
23:35games when we tear up Southern, you know what I'm saying? And, and have a good time. So I'm
23:39thinking about one of my grandma's favorite smells, but she also love feeding news. Anybody like feeding
23:44news? Okay. They trash, but my grandma loved them. So the goal is to, for me today is to make a cigar
23:51that reminds me of my grandma. All right. So again, that makes the experience more enjoyable. So
23:58I'm going to make a size. I'm going to make a Corona Gordo. So based on the size is how many leaves
24:04that you put. So now corresponding from smaller Vitolas, Vitolas is pretty much ring gauge size.
24:12So fellas, I, if you, if you married, you know, your wife rings size. Any brother married in here
24:17with their wife, they know they wife rings so they can yell it out. What size brother? Seven. Okay.
24:24Now think about cigar ring gauge sizes, very similar. Okay. All right. So now instead of, instead of seven,
24:31you start hearing 48, 50 ring gauge, 52, 54, 60, you know, 67. Okay. And each one of those particular
24:41sizes or Vitolas is what we call them in the cigar industry has a corresponding blend recipe where it's
24:49at least two to three leaves of a particular set of leaves to, in order to get that size. Okay. So now
24:55what I'm doing here is going to make the cigar free handed. But typically when you making cigars,
24:59the cigars, uh, they oppress them in a mold. So now again, we still take the stems out. Um,
25:06I think in the song, Dr. Dre explosives, he said, he want the chronic with no seeds. We don't want no
25:10stems on this. You want frog legs is what we looking for. Can y'all see the frog legs? All right. The
25:16frog legs. All right. When you making the cigars, you got a couple of methods. You got the book method,
25:21which is just simply taking the leaf and folding it in half. All right. Then you have the accordion
25:28method, which is kind of like half, half, like not quite have like a fourth, like one fourth over.
25:33And then you have the untubo method where you essentially turn it into a tube. Like you're
25:38going to pop somebody on top of the head with the newspaper. All right. Depending on the size and type
25:43of leaf, you will actually make, you will use different types of rolling methods. But this particular
25:49leaf, I like the untubo. So we'll get to that. All right. So now this is the part now where we,
25:56we got the, we got the rule going. Now we adding our, our ingredients. We adding a special marinated
26:03chicken. We adding up iron and doing sausages. Now we, we, we, we having the wife taste it. We
26:08listening to a little Al green. We were going over here to say, baby, taste that. And how that taste
26:13is missing something. You feel what I'm saying? Then we go back to the drawing board. That's what cigar
26:17making is about. And I want y'all the next time y'all smoke a cigar, then the type of questions
26:22y'all start asking. Now I wonder what the maker was thinking when he was piecing this together,
26:26when he came up with the blend, when I have this with a glass of wine, or when I share this cigar
26:31with my potential business partner, my employer that I'm trying to network with, that you start
26:38thinking about and being more considerate and conscious of what you're recommending them based
26:44on what you know about the blend itself. And it will implore you to kind of do some more research.
26:50So there we go. All right. So now in this particular Seiko situation, I'm looking for three.
26:56All right. You stack them like so. Can y'all see that? All right. Now, when we start thinking
27:03about combustion, I don't want the cigar to be too strong. The only thing my grandmother liked strong
27:09was her coffee and her moonshine is what she said. She like moonshine. She likes real strong moonshine,
27:15y'all. I don't know how them old folks had to do it like that. So now I can do one or two leaves.
27:22Again, we're talking about strength. I don't want it too strong. My ideal thing that I probably drink
27:26it with is probably a chai tea or a nice, you know, RC Cola. So sometimes it ain't even liquor
27:33what I'm pairing it with. And what I'm thinking about smoking with this is some, uh, some, uh,
27:39fresh pan peanuts, fresh pan peanuts, RC Cola sit out on the porch. You know what I'm saying? And
27:45watch gun smoke. You know what I'm saying? So that's my thing. All right. And again, that's your
27:50ritual. It's a personal thing. So I don't want it to be too strong, but I do want it to give me some,
27:54some peppers and look, a little bit of, a little bit of heat. All right. So once we kind of got that idea
27:59together, we done laid all of the ideas flat down, as you can see, all the stuff that I'm going for.
28:05At this point, this is, this process is called the bunching process. It's where we're pretty much
28:10bunching everything together. We making our ideas one. Okay. All right. So now we're looking for,
28:19looking for stems. Anybody ever smoked a cigar and they find stems in their cigars?
28:24Anybody ever smoked them? All right. If you find them every now and then,
28:27it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be a problem, but you don't want that to be the standard. So
28:33stems come out. All right. So then here is where the magic happens. I start thinking about,
28:40I want the cigar to start a certain way. I want it to, I want it to change platforms in the middle
28:45and do something else for me. Then I want it to end a certain way. And when you look up at these leaves
28:51up close, what you will be able to tell is the differences in color and differences in feel.
28:57So if you do choose to come up here and want to roll a cigar with your boy,
29:00then you would get a chance to see the leaves up close and you can kind of see how they differ.
29:05And what you're seeing me do now is kind of like chopping chives, chopping onions,
29:10you know what I'm saying? Making sure the skin is off and getting the shape to it. Okay. And once that
29:15piece is done, then we start the process of actually rolling the cigar. All right. Now,
29:22this is where the geometry piece comes in, but it looks a little simple, but it can get a little
29:28complicated. All right. Once we get here, we land the foundation. Remember I told you the point of the
29:33binder is to do what? Hold stuff together. Okay. All right. So what we're trying to do is hold the blend
29:39that we talking together. So pretty much the pot that we got it in right now. Okay. And what we're
29:47doing at this moment is trying to make sure that the cigar burns correctly, doesn't split apart on us,
29:55and hold all of the ingredients together. And that's what we're going for.
30:03And this method here, I think the sisters will probably have a better go at rolling these at first,
30:09because it's really hard on your hands at first to get the dexterity right. A lot of the brothers
30:13come in and touch the cigar leaves, like they finna grab a weed whacker, or they going to start up
30:18their zero turn and they end up tearing the leaves. You got to treat it like you, uh, treat it like a,
30:23uh, you're trying to ask your wife, can you go hang out with the boys on Friday night? And you've been,
30:29you've been doing too much this week. So you got to ease into it, baby, do your mind. You know what I'm
30:34saying? Baby, do you, do your mind. Okay. So think about that. If you come up here to try to make a cigar,
30:39just think about it, touch it as softly, uh, as you can. And what you should have with a binder
30:45is what looks like a fingerprint. And this is what you see when you see the edge. It should be like
30:52a cylinder, a cylinder, if you will. Now this same process is replicated by putting tobacco binders
30:58inside of a press. They put them in like a mold to press them. But over time, your dexterity gets
31:03good enough with your hands where you can kind of mimic this process via physically pressing down. Y'all
31:08following me? All right, cool. So now we go back through and this is the first time we'll use
31:14the Shaveta. What we want to do now is trim the hedges. We want to make sure that it, the construction
31:18is good. All right. Now y'all see how sharp that knife is. It cut through this like skin. This is
31:23like, uh, feels like a little like leather, if you will. All right. From there, we go back in to make
31:28sure that the dexterity is right. What we're using now is, uh, non-acid fruit pectin, which is you'll
31:36put in like gelatin. Uh, you have a couple other options like Arabic gum, which is the active ingredient
31:43in chewing gum. So anybody that got chewing gum in their mouth, you can use Arabic gum to put on here.
31:49You can also use other, uh, products like, uh, aloe vera and honey mixture. And typically with Nicaraguan
31:57tobacco, I use the honey and aloe vera option. Um, just because it, it kind of does a little bit of
32:05that overarching spice sometimes. I mean, it just sweet on the tongue as well. And a lot of the infused
32:10cigars like, uh, that you will kind of recommend to some beginner, uh, smokers or women or men who like
32:17more of a, uh, uh, assorted flavor type of cigar smoking. They use those types of mixtures with
32:24like food grade, like, uh, flavoring for taste, but this is where it holds it together. So it's no,
32:29it's no licking at all. So how you think about the other way, no licking mobile. It's, it's,
32:36it just better all around. If any of you use the other, you should use this and you can get non-acid
32:41fruit pectin from like your, uh, from the local grocery store. Uh, and if you're like in Miami or any
32:46place that has a botanica, you can get Arabic gum pretty, pretty easy. And you can make your
32:51own chewing gum if you ain't never thought about that. So now that's what we use to hold it together.
32:56So now I told y'all we got wrapper binder and filler. We got the filler and binder. Now the last
33:01thing, which is kind of like the most important part for some people is the wrapper. And that's what
33:08people see. Okay. All right. Now, far as taste wise, in my honest opinion, I've heard
33:15numerous of stats about this, about how much the wrapper constitutes for taste.
33:22And I've came up with a farce. I think that people believe because the wrapper is on top
33:29and it's the thing that's in direct contact with their mouth, that that's primarily contributing to
33:35the taste. I would disagree. I would say that it's a probably about 10% of the total of the total
33:40process, but the fillers, the fillers and the binder plays a huge, huge part in what you should be
33:47pairing it with, with what you're smelling and primarily your taste if you're romanticizing the
33:53process holistically and not smoking for necessarily for a buzz. Okay. Y'all following me? All right. So
33:58now we're going to put the wrapper on and then I'll take some questions or whoever want to come try
34:02themselves. All right. So the same process as before, taking the wrapper loose. But with the wrapper,
34:08I don't do my little fancy trick I just did when I first started. I take it all the way to the end
34:13because wrappers, you don't, you don't want to have any holes on the outside because again,
34:18we're trying to present our best self. All right. So now we're putting the wrapper on. Now this time,
34:27before we do any kind of, any kind of pudding and cigar, we do the hibachi tricks. So now all the
34:34people who like, y'all like hibachi, y'all eat hibachi. Okay. So now I get a chance to do some,
34:38you know, you know, you know, I'm a little, my little cutting thing and with the Chevetta. And
34:43it's a very fun thing, y'all. It's very meditative. So again, when I was telling y'all about
34:50this is one of our ancestors' crafts. So to be able to, to, to do this now after I could have been
34:57doing anything else and keeping our traditions alive is a very, very beautiful thing for me.
35:02So now once we got the cut, it's what we kind of looking for. So now you probably wonder,
35:08for some people may want to know what I, what I do with the rest of that, all of the scrap tobacco.
35:12That's what you make chew with. That's what you, you know, you can make some chew with that. You can,
35:17you can press it down and make a plug with it. If you got your cousin, you know, saying your little
35:22nephew or something who want to roll them a J, you can, you know, you know, put that to the side
35:26for that. You know what I'm saying? You can actually use it for bandages. You know, you can
35:31dry it and use it for bandages. You can put it in oils, you know, like for, for skin rashes or antiseptic.
35:38So you never really throw none of this stuff away. All of these scraps, you take all of the stems,
35:43as I mentioned before, and use them for like, use them for like insect repellents. So now here we go,
35:48putting the wrapper on. So now what we're looking for is like a cylinder. All right. So in this
35:54particular order, I'm going right to left. And we pretty much put the wrapper on. Again, I told y'all,
36:05tobacco kind of stretch like leather a little bit. So it's supposed to feel like leather. And you put the
36:10glue here to make sure that it holds together. All right. So now once we have the wrapper on,
36:20what we do now is to get all of the bumps and bruises out of the cigar. We don't want to make
36:25sure that it has any lumps because it contributes to a bad smoking experience. And I'm using a pigtail
36:33for my cigar smokers. Anybody familiar with the pigtail? All right. So I'll tell y'all a quick little
36:39story about my grandpa. My grandpa, his favorite thing was eating cracklings. So he used to hunt
36:46pigs and hogs and stuff all the time. And he used to roll his joints before it was like reefer to smoke.
36:54They used to smoke this stuff called rabbit tobacco. I don't know if y'all heard of rabbit tobacco.
36:58It's a plant that y'all can just kind of find outside into an old field. If y'all go out into a
37:02field in the next couple of weeks, look for, it looked like an old cotton stalk, like dry cotton
37:08stalk. It's like white is gray. They take that plant. It's called love everlasting or rabbit tobacco.
37:15You can smoke that. It's very bitter. And it kind of gives you like a a head high very similar to
37:21like smoking some old reefer, like some old, yeah. And it was the reefer before reefer. But he rolled it
37:27in onion skins. And he always put a pigtail on the end so he could just bite it off. And that's so
37:34when I roll in person, you know, to kind of keep the family's legacy alive, the recipe, I do the pigtail.
37:40And that's the piece that I want to leave with y'all about this process. Cigar making black people is
37:47one of those crafts that if we don't participate more, we'll lose it. If we don't open up more shops
37:56and reach in more brands, we'll lose it. It's very similar to like a nearest green and uncle nearest.
38:03If we didn't have, if we didn't have funny and her family is deciding that they wanted to keep that
38:08alive. And, and, and we allude with that lost their recipe, you know, we would have lost their recipe.
38:14So y'all these, these things here, my family's been doing this for a lot, a long time. This is my life's
38:20work. This is what I'll do till God calls me home, you know, and I'm 34. And it's a lot of history.
38:28It's a lot of stories, for me personally, that kind of is caught up in this, you know, my fifth
38:34generation grandfather, my grandfather's, you know, rolling style, my grandmother's perspectives on
38:40putting food together and preparing food. And all of the stories that get told between you and your
38:45families and you and your friends on a cool day. This is how we preserve our culture.
38:50I think that we've done a lot of oral telling our stories. I think now we got to start writing them
38:55down more. And that's what my family has done for me. And this moment for me kind of is like a
39:02tribute to being able to make something last, you know, and hopefully Lord say the same,
39:09we'll be doing this another 139 years. So, you know, I already did my part by bringing my kids in. So
39:16the sixth generation has already started. So with that, if any, if y'all want to have some questions
39:22or somebody wants to come up here and try to make a cigar, you want to come up and try to make one,
39:26brother. Come on. And I definitely thank y'all for, uh, for taking the time to come up to the Sway
39:37Lounge and come kick it with me. I didn't think, uh, I didn't know who was going to come. Uh, when I got
39:42the call, I was like, man, some, some people would be interested in, you know, some cigar making. And
39:47then, uh, y'all beautiful faces chose to come kick it with me for a little bit of time. And, uh, I tell
39:52y'all, I'm eternally grateful, brother. You, uh, you a big fellow, bro. Come on, man. I thought I
39:57would be, come on, big man. All right. I mean, I appreciate you, man. So take a, take a seat in
40:02the cockpit and we'll get started. It's going to hold brother. All right, cool. That's that old
40:07church bench right there. Good man. Yes, sir. So what I'm going to do is so, so the table don't slip
40:13up under you, this rolling table. I'm going to sit this tile. You got like mesh pants on, so it ain't
40:18going to stay, it ain't going to stain you. So what I'm going to, what I'm going to do is sit this tile
40:21up under here so you can try to have some, have some grip on the, on the table. All right. So now,
40:29what kind of cigar are you trying to make? What you know, only drink or smoke?
40:33Mild to strong. Mild to strong. What's, what's your favorite drink?
40:37Old fashioned. What, what kind of, uh, what kind of? Okay. All right. So we're going to make a blend for
40:46that. All right. So now I'm going to start it and then now I'm going to get up close up on you.
40:53So now we had that conversation there first. You see where these veins are here. All right. I want
40:58you to slowly pull it down, but as you move down, move your hands down. All right. Now he got some big
41:04hands. We're going to see. All right. He doing all right. You got it. Your wife here? You single.
41:14Okay. He's single. All right. Ladies. Well, anybody single, you know, brother, brother,
41:18brother, so like he decent with his hands right now. He ain't told the tobacco leave. So that's good.
41:22Good. All right. That's good. All right. So remember I told you at first, like that type of
41:34stuff, you can like, if you had that at home, you can, you can actually like, uh, burn it. So what
41:39you want to do is you want to just stretch them out like this and then just lay them flat. Remember
41:43I told you, light skin inside, dark skin outside. All right. Cool. So now I bet. Now you got that.
41:50Then you lay at an angle. I want you to think about this right there. All right. You following
41:57what I'm saying? All right. Cool. Now you just spread that tobacco leaf out to, to look cool to you.
42:07All right. How you feel about it? Good. All right. Cool. All right. So what we going to do,
42:11you said, now, if you had to pick, what you going to drink today? You're going to drink some bourbon
42:17today. Okay. All right. He said, he's confident in it. He said, he's drinking some bourbon today.
42:21All right. So we're going to give you a little more, a little more stronger than,
42:25than what I was making. Okay. So we're going to give you some more on the fuller, fuller body side.
42:28Okay. So this, so this is your Lajero now. So now what I want you to do is smell that for me and tell
42:33me what you're smelling. So wood. All right. So we got wood. What kind of wood?
42:50Now to me, it smell like cherry.
42:55All right. So that's your Lajero. So that's going to be for your combustion. Okay.
42:59All right. So then we, then now we're going to do your Seiko.
43:03We're going to do three of those. All right. So the first thing I need you to do,
43:06we're going to sit down to the side. So now when you, when each leaf you pick up, fold in half.
43:11You see that? You see that? You see the dark side of the leaf? The light side of the leaf. Fold.
43:17Take that little stem out to where you get that frog leg right there. Okay. Now you get,
43:21then you can hold that in your left hand and you do that with each one of them. Hey y'all,
43:25he doing all right. Hey, yeah, he doing all right. He doing good. He doing good.
43:29So now, man, so some fun facts, man. Most, uh, cigar rollers are in the factory. What's up,
43:33Big Newt? Everything good. So most, uh, most cigar rollers in the factory are probably rolling about
43:40150 to 300 of these a day. And the crazy thing is they probably getting between 25 and 50 cents a cigar
43:49abroad. Yeah. I know it's crazy, ain't it? Yeah. So, uh, so a lot of this stuff here is, uh,
43:56still done by hand and it holds up entire economies. And my brother doing good enough,
44:02I ain't even necessarily gotta watch him too close. He doing good. I ain't heard no crack of him say,
44:06oh, shoot, yet. He doing all right. So most people do this by speed. Uh, so then in Cuba,
44:13you have levels to it. You have a level, like a beginner, level one, level nine, and it's all
44:19about competency and ability to roll different sizes and sizes or by totals, uh, for the point of
44:26that. All right, you got it. Okay, cool. So now you've seen what I did at the bottom. All right,
44:32so now what you want to do is you here on top, twist in the opposite direction. Got it?
44:44All right, good. So now, so separate them. I'm gonna add it. There we go. There we go. All right,
44:52so now you remember the colors of the leaves now. All right, so if you want it stronger,
44:57what we do is here, this is, this is a Seiko. You lay it here. Okay. Then your Lajero, you can see
45:04that's the darker one. You want to go up top. If you want it to get stronger in the back of the cigar,
45:09then you put the bigger end up top. If you want it to get, if you want it to be stronger in this,
45:15at this first third, then you put the water in at the bottom. You kind of follow what I'm saying?
45:19Back and forth. Yeah, back and forth until it's at the size that is comfortable for you.
45:26And that's the kind of, at that particular point, it's kind of like your particular,
45:31you got a taste level. You want it to taste a certain way. Like for me, man, my auntie, man,
45:38make some real, real good banana pudding. And with the banana pudding, she almost let her bananas get to a
45:44point where they, where they almost, uh, they're too soft, actually. But once she make the banana
45:50pudding, it's like, they got to be a certain way before she put them in there. And then she always
45:54put plantains and banana pudding. I don't know if y'all ever had plantains and banana pudding,
45:57but it tastes really good. Okay. You got it. All right. Do you want to take any of this off?
46:01So now when you think, now feel it for you. All right. So now when you feel it in your hand,
46:05what you got in your hand now, it's going to be a really big cigar. Do you want a big cigar?
46:09Okay. All right. So now when you get it into the field, I'll probably go here. And that's when you
46:17start trimming off the edges a little bit. All right. So now we're going to try to roll it.
46:29Yep. So you sit it on here first. All right. You want to start at the end.
46:33Now you're doing good, bro. All right. So once you get it started, boom.
46:39Now roll.
46:55Okay. Good. All right. We want to make it, now we want to make, now you see how loose it feel?
47:05Now you got, you got some big hands. So I want you to press and roll to turn it over so it can be,
47:12so make sure it don't come unglued. All right. That's a good job. That's a good job. That's a good job.
47:19All right. So now that you're done with that, put it up here. Press the guillotine cutter down. Oh yeah,
47:32this is my favorite machine right here. This guillotine cutter, this guillotine cutter was made by Lewis Hampton
47:40The fifth, a black man from Charleston, South Carolina came up with this style, this particular wedge,
47:47the wedge hens that got patent to be used in cigar making now. I almost forgot to tell y'all that, man.
47:54That's very, very important. That's very, very important. So the cutter that we use now in the
47:58traditional cigar community came up, you know what I'm saying, by a black man. All right. So good job.
48:02All right. So cool. But this is the head of your cigar now. So what you want to do with that, you want to do that
48:07same thing. Now clip it, clip it right there. Right there. Watch your hands. I bet. All right, cool.
48:15So we on, we on, we on the crunch. So now flip it back over for me. Make sure, so I can make sure you
48:23get through it all. Let me hurry up and get it, get it down for you. You got, you said again, the liquid?
48:34You, yeah, you, you, no, you finna get ready to use it now. Yeah, I have before. Yeah.
48:42Oh, you, I said, you, okay, you know something about that. Yeah.
48:47Okay. You came back from Columbia. Did you enjoy yourself?
48:51Okay. So now remember, now here, here's the part. That's the hard part. All right. Take the knife.
48:57Roll. Okay. So I'll start. Boom. So cut, cut that way.
49:07Roll it. There we go. Roll it. Roll it. Okay. Now, now I'll cut down here.
49:18All right. Now roll your cigar onto it the same way.
49:21All right. And y'all, this is what probably one of the funnest, the funnest parts right here. So when
49:26you're thinking about going into the cigar, cigar lounges from now on or smoking, just know that every
49:31cigar that y'all getting made, somebody is sitting down here, throwing it, going through these. And
49:36the more tobacco that you use, this stuff can get wasted. People lose their jobs. You know, this is
49:42livelihoods I made off of. And this is the thing that I do for my, for my livelihood. And it
49:46seem like he almost done. Okay, good. Now, now right here. And then you see what, now that's when
49:54you use your servietta again to cut. Boom. And then you can do the pigtail like so.
50:06And then you did it. Hey, he didn't do bad for his first cigar. My eyes are way worse.
50:11Hey, my brother, you want to come right with me? He did. He did. Give my good brother a round of
50:19applause, man. And amen. So fun fact. So if y'all want to hit the lotto, before you smoke any cigar,
50:29you're always supposed to give somebody one. And you're supposed to tell them if they hit, if they
50:33have good luck to give you a call. That's the first cigar, the first cigar of the day. I done have
50:39people get married. I done have people hit the scratch offs. I done have people get job promotions
50:45off the very first cigar. So bro, you hit the lotto, man. Don't forget me, bro.
50:50So people, I thank y'all so much for taking the time to come and listen to me. It means a lot to me.
50:57Again, I'm a sartorial tobacconist. I'm from Jackson, Mississippi. You know, pride of the north side.
51:03You know what I'm saying? Thank y'all for stopping by and hollering at me. I'll be in New Orleans. I live in New
51:09Orleans now. So throughout the week, I'll be at the festival, man. If you see me, I'll be at a
51:12couple cigar lounges, man. Feel free to come stop by and have a cigar with me. Remember the history,
51:18this type of history is our history. And even if it's not a thing that you do often, it should be
51:23one of those things. And when you think about it, you know, you'll be like, man, black people really
51:27cultivated a space full of love, full of culture, full of reverence. You know what I'm saying? For
51:32those who have came before us and for the people to come. God bless y'all. I hope y'all enjoy y'all
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