- 3 weeks ago
A workshop for a hands-on experience that blends skill, culture, and real conversation.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00History of cigar making. I'm chief of new city Amin Ra. I hail from the north side of Jackson,
00:05Mississippi. You know what I'm saying? The birthplace of America's music. I currently now
00:10reside in uptown New Orleans and it's been a blessing. So we'll get through the brief
00:15introduction of who I am and what I do. I'm a tobacco farmer, cigar maker. Currently I've
00:21been professionally doing this craft now for a little over 13 years. My family has been
00:27growing tobacco 139 years. So we've started growing Virginia's and Cavendish's and that
00:34was used in some of the more popular pipe tobaccos like Black Mound. Anybody heard of Black Mound?
00:41Okay, cool, cool. Newport's, Camels, Benson Hedges for my people who are a little more seasoned.
00:48Y'all know Benson Hedges. Cools. And currently now I took the business about 10 years ago
00:55and decided I wanted to press it forward. So currently I'm the tobacconist of the Backwoods
01:00brands. Anybody familiar with Backwoods cigars? So I'm the tobacconist of Backwoods. I've been
01:05a personal cigar roller for a numerous amount of very important people. Some that I love more
01:12than others. I'm Cam Newton. I did Jalen Hurts. I've got a chance to roll cigars for a sitting
01:19president, a couple governors, a crown prince, you know, and some foreign dignitaries. So
01:25I've traveled around more like a cigar valet or a butler. So think of me as your personal
01:30Jeffrey, if you will, but just tobacco related. All right, so y'all ready to take a little
01:35ride with me? Okay, okay, cool. Anybody new to New Orleans or first time to the city of New
01:41Orleans? Okay, well give it up for yourself. You know what I'm saying? Welcome, welcome, welcome,
01:46welcome. Tobacco, man, just like any other crop, black people have had a special, special,
01:55special part in cultivating and continuing their legacy. Most people, have anybody got
02:03an experience with their grandfather smoking pipe tobacco? Anybody? Raise your hand so I
02:09can see you. Okay, okay, okay. So a few people can remember those memories. So for this reference
02:14point, New Orleans is really, really known for food. So we think about food, jazz. So
02:20we're going to use, we're going to talk about soul food. So pretty much this is soul food.
02:24I'm going to start off with a story about Stephen, Stephen Slade. Stephen Slade is the person who
02:31we know who came up with bright tobacco. All right, that tobacco is the tobacco currently used
02:37in all cigarettes you know anybody smoke. Anybody you know smoke pipe tobacco currently to this
02:43day? Stephen Slade is who came up with that. Stephen Slade was on the Slade Plantation, which
02:49was the competitor to what you now know to be RJ Reynolds, which makes Newports and Camels,
02:57and then now you're Winston, Benson Hedges, and all of the cigarettes you know. He was the most
03:03revolutionary figure in the black tobacco space. What he figured out how to do, in essence, created
03:12the foundation for the smoking experience, is one of the largest imports and exports in the world.
03:18And we've got black people to thank for that. So just like any other situation, tobacco and cropping
03:24and sharecropping and farming the land is one of those things that we specialize in. So now,
03:30when we think of soul food, the particular conversation that's of most importance for me
03:35to share with y'all about this workshop is the conversation of blending. Blending, I would give
03:40y'all that conversation is very, very similar to grandma's favorite dish. My grandma just passed two
03:47and a half weeks ago. Her favorite dish was macaroni and cheese. Grandma loved macaroni and cheese. Now,
03:55all macaroni and cheese generally had the same ingredients, but all food prepared by the different
04:02person hits different. Same thing with the tobacco. So I want you, as we listen to the conversation
04:07about blending, I want you to think about your family's recipe, your family's love, the things
04:14that you enjoy doing to romanticize a big piece of black history. So the next time you fire up a cigar,
04:21I want you to think about black history. What you see currently here is a tomahawk. It's my fifth
04:27generation grandfather's tomahawk. Chief falling cloud. Fifth generation grandfather's a Choctaw Indian.
04:34I know most black people grew up at some point in time saying I got a little Indian in me or my
04:37grandma some Indian. Would y'all agree with that? Okay, so now in Mississippi, that's a very, that's a
04:42very real thing. And for a lot of us, it's a very real thing. So now, the Cohiba ritual. Anybody heard of
04:48the cigar brand Cohiba before? Okay, the Cohiba ritual is actually the lighting of the cigar. All right,
04:56and y'all, and the shaman during this time who orchestrated the tribe, we would consider him
05:00like an evangelist or a reverend in this case. It's called the behique. The lighting of the cigar
05:06was supposed to be the smoke traveling around. We're supposed to give fortune to see if we're
05:11going to have good harvest. We wasn't going to have famine amongst the tribes, but also to spread
05:16healing, to convene with the ancestors, to speak positivity, or as a mode of prayer. So anytime you're
05:22seeing somebody smoking, in most cases, we're watching people, if you done had a stressful day,
05:26we go outside, we light up a cigar. Somebody done pissed you off, you go see the cigar. You done had a
05:32cool day sitting back watching the game, having you a cold brew, you fire up the cigar. You and your
05:37lady having a nightcap, get you a little Merlot, fire you up a cigar or whatever herbal tapestry or
05:43choice that may be that has some kind of tobacco or natural-grown flower in it. And that's the ritual
05:48piece. And I don't want us to kind of forget that. So as we start thinking about that going
05:52into stuff, my number one rule when smoking cigars, making cigars, blending cigars, anything
05:57concerning the tobacco, from seed to cigar, is a very rudimentary formula. The who, what, when,
06:03where, and why. Can somebody repeat that for me? Okay, who? Who is the person partaking? So in a
06:14cigar lounge, I always think about before I recommend a cigar, who's the person I'm talking
06:19to? Am I talking to a former law enforcement professional? Am I talking to a current attorney?
06:24Am I talking to a beautiful sister? Am I talking to an older brother, older sister? You know,
06:29all of these type of cultural differences and nuances matter when you're getting ready to offer
06:33them a selection that's supposed to pair with their spirit. What? What's the occasion? What are we
06:38celebrating on today? Are we celebrating a graduation? Are we celebrating a marriage? Are we celebrating
06:45an anniversary? Are we mourning the loss of somebody and it's just a sentimental thing? Where? Where's the
06:51location? Is it in a cigar lounge? Is it a golf course? Is it your partner's garage? Is the front
06:57porch? Is it in Cancun on the yacht or, you know, on the beach? You know, so then where and the most
07:02important thing is the why. Why are we doing this? Are we doing it for a good time? Are we doing it
07:08to network? Are we doing it to relax? Are we doing it to work and give honor to our ancestors? Are we
07:13doing it to recalculate a moment? This is a thing that we think about when we're putting cigars together.
07:19I know a lot of people, when they think about smoking cigars, they're like, oh, hey, well,
07:23that's a man thing, or that's too strong, or only old people do it. No, this is a cultural thing. Black
07:31people, I'm telling y'all on today, it belongs to our ancestors, and if we don't participate,
07:36we'll lose it. If we don't participate, we'll lose it. When we're putting blends together,
07:42that's the part that I wanted to speak on. I gave y'all the back story to cultural implants,
07:47so we'll call that for natural ingredients. We'll say we're trying to build a good root here
07:52for some gumbo. Okay, so right now, we got the rice. We got a couple spices kind of laid out.
07:57Now we're going to get into some technical pieces about the blending process. So now,
08:04when we're getting ready to think about blends, again, I told you the who, what, when, where,
08:08and why is the most important thing when you're considering this and the legacy of the food.
08:14All right, so we got natural ingredients and cigars. So the cigars are made in three parts,
08:21wrapper, binder, and filler. So now I'm going to need y'all to walk with me because I want,
08:27I'm going to give y'all some, I don't want to say they're X-rated, X-rated analogies, but they are
08:33more like parental guidance. Okay, are y'all with me? Okay, cool. So filler, this will be filler here.
08:42This is what you would, if you're rolling up or busting down a J or a Dutch or a Philly,
08:48this will be your end of the guts. Okay, but in this case, we don't throw this out. We smoke this.
08:53Okay, these are your filler tobaccos. This will be the birthday soup. Okay,
09:00every single filler tobacco has a country or origin. Any wine or coffee people out here for
09:06me? Raise your hand. Okay, so now y'all think about country or origin when y'all considering
09:11what y'all going to drink. Okay, same thing with tobacco. All right, if you want something more mild,
09:17we start thinking about the Connecticut River Valley. This has glacier soil. This is more,
09:22y'all ever heard the song Cooling Waters? You know, okay, all right, Cooling Waters. Waters from
09:27Grandma, you know what I'm saying? Grandma's where? Cool, mild, very calming, relaxing, pleasant,
09:34very cool on the, on the aroma. The body is not too, not too hard. It's very mellow. All right,
09:41and we start thinking about stuff that's more robust, strong. We start looking towards
09:47you know, Mexico. We start thinking about the Carolinas, Kentucky, you know, with bourbon.
09:53Those tobaccos have more of a, a pepper, a black pepper, a stronger, more robust. All right,
10:00so y'all know when you think about Kentucky, we start thinking about bourbon. But then also,
10:04you start thinking about countries like Costa Rica, Honduras, who have volcanic soil. And when we think
10:10sulfur, we start thinking hot, strong. Okay, so now, then you could go to Nicaragua, you can go to,
10:18you could go to Indonesia. So when you start thinking about like Indonesia or Indonesia bazooka,
10:23we start thinking about Oriental spice. So maybe your chili powder, paprika, you know, red pepper,
10:30you know, thyme, you know, different types of Oriental spices. So now when you take all of those
10:37different tobaccos from different countries of origin, and you start to mix them together,
10:41what you get is a nice little concoction. So now with two tobaccos, you can make a couple different
10:46blends. So let's say you watching the game, and you want a cigar for your wife, and she's drinking a
10:51little Merlot. When you start thinking about these things, you want to think about the whole situation
10:57again, who, what, when, where, and why, and that'll decide what you smoke. So now if I'm thinking about
11:02this, making a blend with only two tobaccos, I got two fillers, then I got the wrapper and binder,
11:06we'll get there. You do things in threes, romanticize it. The cigar itself, the cocktail
11:13and or meal, and some kind of third element. That could be chocolate, that can be cheesecake,
11:18that can be ginger, that can be fruits, that can be certain dried fruits. You know, you always want
11:25to do it in threes, and this is the reason why I suggest that. You want to kind of take your palette
11:29on the ride, and the fillers is kind of the base of that conversation. It's like somebody just
11:35giving you some gumbo, and they ain't season the meat. They just threw the ingredients in the pot,
11:40and gave you a, they say, it looked like gumbo, but it don't smell like gumbo. It don't kind of move
11:45in the, in the dish like gumbo. That sort of thing you can get from the smoke. So now I'll kind of break
11:50them down. Between the fillers, we got Seiko. Seiko, think aroma, keeping it base, aroma. All right,
11:58like your favorite cologne. Any, any brother got a favorite cologne? What's your favorite cologne,
12:03brother? Say it again? Oud? Okay, for Corey. Okay. Glory. Okay, glory. Okay, cool. Okay, say oud.
12:14All right, so when I think oud, I think pepper. I think tobacco, sandalwood, you know, things like
12:22that, okay? So Seiko would be like the, the immediate nose element, what touches, what touches
12:28your nose. And just like the who, what, when, where, and why, we're trying to activate the five
12:32senses. A cigar scents just tastes good. It should smell good. It should feel good, you know, and it
12:39should be able to captivate all kind of elements. Just like when your, your, your cologne has a nice
12:43room note and it spreads about, the tobacco smoke should have the same thing. The smoke is telling a
12:48particular story. It's telling a story of origin. It's telling a story of the blenders deciding to
12:53make, to craft a certain experience out for you to have. And that's the type of thing every time you
12:58light up a cigar or smoke, period. So even for my people who, you know, smoke the J, the herbal
13:03tapestry, you know, I indulge from time to time. All of those experiences are exactly the same. And
13:08these experiences can not only translate outside of cigar smoking, it can translate into how you shave,
13:15how you, how you do your hair, how you put on your makeup, how you tie your tie in the morning. It's
13:20just taking the time to consider, a little bit of consideration. So Seiko, now we're going to go to
13:25Lajero. Lajero, that's spice. Combustion, if you will. If, for all my grill masters out there,
13:31that's like making sure you got, you got the coals set up right, you know what I'm saying, on the
13:35grill. We don't want one side burning hotter than the other. We don't want to have lit coals on the
13:39grill. All right, cool. This would be for combustion here. Now it also plays an underlying taste. If I
13:46had to compare it to grilling food, it's like smoking meats, like smoking some Boston butts or
13:52something, you know what I'm saying, like smoking meats. But it also is responsible for combustion.
13:57Are y'all following me so far? Okay, so now them two tobaccos, one is for aroma, one is for combustion
14:05and strength. But when you start mixing them together, you start having a moving experience.
14:10So now we move to the second part of the tobacco process, which is the binder. Now my binder,
14:16a binder and wrapper can be interchangeable. My analogy for that is for my fitness sisters,
14:22who are trying to get into the fitness, waist trainer, or you know what I'm saying, or, you know,
14:28a corset if you're going on a night on the town. For my brothers, I know brothers be wearing like
14:32skims and stuff now too, trying to hold it together, you know what I'm saying, you know,
14:36or some compression shorts when you're in the gym or, you know, any kind of thing to hold it together
14:41was what we're trying to do here. And those look like this. So if you haven't seen a whole tobacco
14:48leaf, this is kind of what it looks like. Can y'all see from where I'm at? All right, so whole tobacco
14:53leaf. This is what you call a binder, and it can be interchangeable with a wrapper. Now in this case,
14:59this particular leaf looks well enough where it can be used as a wrapper as well. And the wrapper
15:05is the outside. Fellas, it's your wife in that nice dress you bought her for a night out on the
15:09town, a nice pair of heels, you know what I'm saying, when she got, when she all dolled up. Sisters,
15:14it's your fella when he come out there in a three-piece tuxedo you've been trying to come,
15:18or a suit you've been trying to convince him to wear since Father's Day. The watch you bought him last
15:21year or the tie, you know what I'm saying, is when you really got that shit on. You feel what I'm saying?
15:25All right, that's the wrapper. That's what normally first catches our attention inside of a cigar
15:30lounge. When we walk into cigar lounges, most people shop based on how stuff look. Do the label
15:36catch they eye? Do the box catch they eye? Does the wrapper have a sheen to it? You know, can they
15:42smell it if it's not in cellophane? Again, activating all of those senses. Okay, so now we got the wrapper
15:48binder and filler, and we got the two ingredients. Now I'm going to actually show y'all the process of making
15:53the cigar. It would be said, so we're coming out for, anytime I can get a chance to talk about
16:01black women in a positive way, I always take the opportunity to do that. The most growing and
16:09powerful group of people in the cigar, in the premium cigar space at this current time, on all numbers,
16:16MMC, that's mass market cigars, that's premium cigars, rising cigar influencers, podcasters,
16:23is black women. Most of the companies that make the cigars in the Dominican Republic, Honduras,
16:30Nicaragua, these are sisters, and Cuba, the most prominent, some of the most best cigar rollers,
16:37are black women. So give it up for black women one time. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm
16:42saying? Very, very, very big deal. And there's a technical science to that, because when you think
16:47about soul food, you start thinking about Big Mama in the kitchen. Again, we're going back to the
16:51soul food piece. We ain't losing it. When we start thinking about soul food, we start thinking about
16:56Big Mama cooking up her favorite dish. And in the cigar community, both blending and crafting the cigars,
17:02there's a certain level of finesse that's needed in order to kind of captivate this piece. And the
17:09dexterity on the hands. Now some people, I do this a lot for different people, as I told y'all before,
17:16but this is probably the least important part to me. Again, the stuff that I mentioned first was the
17:22most important part, the blending. Now the crafting of the cigars is how you present a final product
17:28to someone, but the tobacco itself, you know, is the part that's most important. Now before I move into,
17:36or as I get ready to move into this piece, I wanted to also be making, to make it known that tobacco,
17:42you know, for my people who are, you know, more spiritual practitioners, you know, these are great
17:47offerings to, you know, your ancestors. One day, you know, you ever go out to the, to the graveyard,
17:52y'all see somebody pull out one for the dead homies, they put a cigar or something by the gravesite.
17:57This is a, this is things that I have been accustomed to doing my entire life. But also tobacco has been used as
18:03medicine, which is why it has to be treated very properly the entire time. From the time you get
18:08it out the ground to the time you light it up, it's a, it's a love relationship. Because this type of
18:13stuff, I use it for chicken pox. When I had chicken pox as a kid, grandmother put me in a tub of hot
18:18water, threw tobacco leaves in there, the natural oil from it is what she used to cure me of chicken
18:24pox. I have bad eczema. Anybody got eczema out here? Anybody got eczema? Tobacco can be used for eczema.
18:31You take the damp leaves, just like you would do with a bee sting. Rub your skin down, put coconut oil
18:37on it. It'll stop the flares. I guarantee you that. Give it a shot sometime. You know, tobacco is also,
18:42you dip, you know, anybody who dip, when you chew, when you chew doing colds, it brings mucus up. You
18:49know, we've used this for headaches. We've used it for heartburn. We've used it for all kinds of skin
18:54elements. Arthritis. You know, some people soak your, soak your feet up in, uh, in hot water and, and,
19:00and vinegar and all of that. You can soak tobacco leaves and put your feet in it. The natural
19:04astringent and, uh, antiseptic pulls swelling and removes excess fluid. So when you think about this
19:11plant, man, this thing is, we grow everything. So why not? God got a, got a particular plant for
19:16everything and this is one of those. So let's get to the part about actually making a cigar. And at some
19:21point, once I'm done kind of showing this process, then if somebody want to come up here and try to make
19:26their own, we can definitely do that. And then if y'all got some questions, um, I would love to take
19:32those. So now, again, when I told y'all it's the three parts of the cigar, what we doing here, this
19:38is the whole leaf. We want to actually devein the leaf. All right. So this particular stem that y'all
19:45let's see up in the middle. I don't know how far y'all can see it from here. That stem can be used for,
19:50like burning, uh, this here can be used for like burning outside to keep mosquitoes away. You know
19:58what I'm saying? Uh, this is the type of, hey, I ever heard of snuff before. All right. This is what
20:04snuff is made out of. They take the stems and put it with like, uh, uh, uh, Himalayan salt and like
20:11cinnamon, uh, and grind it up into a fine powder. And that's when you see people kind of hit the, you
20:17know, you know, on the nose is snuff really, really good for removing stuff in your sinuses
20:21and stuff too. You know what I'm saying? But if you braid these up and sit them outside, man,
20:26it keeps all kinds of insects away from your yard, keep them out your garden. So knowing what we do,
20:30if you're growing stuff, uh, I throw these out in the yard, throw them out in the garden,
20:34keeps all kinds of bugs away, man. That's a beautiful, beautiful thing. All right. So that's that.
20:39You de-stem it. All right. So now again, when we saying we laying out a foundation to,
20:45in order to make the cigar, we talking about now having the binder there. All right. So here's a
20:51crazy analogy. I know it's going to suck y'all. So please forgive me, but this is how I learned
20:55when I was in Cuba. So you won't forget it. When you see the leaves, there's a light side
21:02in the inside. You can see it is more lighter on the inside than it is on the outside.
21:07The analogy that they gave us was, uh, dark skin outside, light skin inside. Uh, it sucked,
21:13but this is coming from a position of a lot of hardship. So people make sure that the lessons
21:18are kind of taught to you in ways that you won't forget it. All right. So I think y'all ain't gonna
21:22forget that, huh? Okay. All right. Cool. Then the job was done. All right. So now we laying out the binder.
21:30Now that the binder is laid out, this is again, like rolling a burrito or making a taco in a, in a way.
21:39So you make sure that the leaves here, anybody good at geometry in here?
21:44Me neither. All right. It's the first time in a long time when I started making cigars,
21:49the actual angle cutting became a, uh, an actual thing. All right. So now,
21:56and so I can explain this knife too. This is a Chevetta. Uh, somebody, can y'all say it out loud for me?
22:01Chevetta. Okay. It's a cutting knife. It's not a slicing knife. I want you to think more of a pendulum.
22:08So a rock, a rock knife, very, very sharp. We'll take your fingers off. Uh, so when you,
22:14so when you do come up here, whoever chooses to come up here to try to make a cigar,
22:18you want to be sure to keep your hands as far away from this directly while you slicing,
22:23because you will take your finger off. All right. It's very, very sharp. And, uh, normally before we
22:29start rolling, I normally, you know, kind of sharp, sharpen them on, you know, a little, little stone.
22:34And all, all right. So there we go. Chevetta. So now here's the blending part. The part that I love.
22:40Seiko. What I want is fall. I want a nice fall day, but I want it to smell like, like autumn,
22:50like a fresh rain that came down and it got that little, you know, you can smell like, uh, old leaves,
22:56kind of falling, old, wet leaves. I want that whole autumn smell. So when I think of Seiko,
23:01this is a Dominican Seiko here. So gives you a lot of sandalwood, uh, uh, sandalwood, maybe
23:09toasted oats type of smell to it. Naturally, this is part of my blend. That's what I'm going for. That's
23:15the nasal experience I'm thinking about here. Cause what I want to think about is a good memory with
23:21my grandma. Me and my grandma used to go to fall harvest all the time, go to Jackson State football
23:26games when we tear up Southern, you know what I'm saying? And, and, uh, have a good time. So I'm thinking
23:31about one of my grandma's favorite smells, but she also love fig newtons. Anybody like fig newtons?
23:37Uh, okay. They trash, but my grandma loved them. So, uh, the, the goal is to, for me today is to make
23:42a cigar that reminds me of my grandma. All right. So again, that makes the experience more enjoyable.
23:48So I'm going to make a size. I'm going to make a, uh, Corona Gordo. So based on the size is how many
23:55leaves that you put. So now corresponding from smaller Vitolas, Vitolas is pretty much ring gauge size.
24:03So fellas, I, if you, if you married, you know, your wife rings size. Any brother married in here with
24:08their wife, they know their wife rings so they can yell it out. What size brother? Seven. Okay. Now think
24:16about cigar ring gauge size is very similar. Okay. All right. So now instead of, instead of seven,
24:23you start hearing 48, 50 ring gauge, 52, 54, 60, you know, 67. Okay. And each one of those particular
24:33sizes or Vitolas is what we call them in the cigar industry has a corresponding blend recipe where it's
24:40at least two to three leaves of a particular set of leaves to in order to get that size. Okay. So
24:46now what I'm doing here is going to make the cigar free handed, but typically when you're making cigars,
24:51uh, they oppress them in a mold. So now again, we still take the stems out. Um, I think in a song,
24:58Dr. Dre Explosives, he said he want the chronic with no seeds. You don't want no stems on this. You
25:03want frog legs is what we're looking for. Can y'all see the frog legs? All right. The frog legs. All right.
25:09When you're making the cigars, you got a couple of methods. You've got the book method,
25:13which is just simply taking the leaf and folding it in half. All right. Then you have the accordion
25:19method, which is kind of like half, half, like not quite half, like a fourth, like one fourth over.
25:25And then you have the untubo method where you essentially turn it into a tube. Like you're going
25:29to pop somebody on top of the head with the newspaper. All right. Depending on the size and type of
25:35leaf, you will actually make, you will use different types of rolling methods. But this particular leaf,
25:41I like the untubo. So we'll get to that. All right. So now this is the part now where we,
25:47we got the, we got the rule going. Now we adding our, our ingredients. We adding our special marinated
25:54chicken. We adding up our and doing sausages. Now we, we, we, we having the wife taste it. We listening
26:00to a little ale green. We were going over here to say, baby, taste that. How'd that taste?
26:04It's missing something. You feel what I'm saying? Then we go back to the drawing board.
26:08That's what cigar making is about. And I want y'all, the next time y'all smoke a cigar,
26:12then the type of questions y'all start asking. Now I wonder what the maker was thinking when he was
26:16piecing this together, when he came up with the blend, when I have this with a glass of wine, or when
26:21I share this cigar with my potential business partner, my employer that I'm trying to network with,
26:29that you start thinking about and being more considerate and conscious of what you're
26:33recommending them based on what you know about the blend itself. And it will implore you to kind of
26:40do some more research. So there we go. All right. So now in this particular Seiko situation, I'm looking
26:46for three. All right. You stack them like so. Can y'all see that? All right. Now, when we start thinking
26:54about combustion, I don't want the cigar to be too strong. The only thing my grandmother liked strong
27:00was her coffee and her moonshine. That's what she said. She likes moonshine. She likes real strong
27:05moonshine, y'all. I don't know how them old folks can do it like that. So now I can do one or two leaves.
27:13Again, we're talking about strength. I don't want it too strong. My ideal thing that I'll probably drink it with is
27:18probably a chai tea or a nice, you know, RC Cola. So sometimes it ain't even liquor what I'm pairing
27:25it with. And what I'm thinking about smoking with this is some fresh pan peanuts. Fresh pan peanuts,
27:33RC Cola sit out on the porch, you know what I'm saying, and watch gun smoke. You know what I'm saying?
27:38So that's my thing. All right. And again, that's your ritual. It's a personal thing. So I don't want it
27:43to be too strong, but I do want it to give me some pepper, a little bit of heat. All right. So once
27:49we kind of got that idea together, we done laid all of the ideas flat down, as you can see. All the
27:55stuff that I'm going for. At this point, this process is called the bunching process. It's where
28:01we're pretty much bunching everything together. We're making our ideas one, okay? All right.
28:06So now, we're looking for stems. Anybody ever smoke a cigar and they find stems in their cigars?
28:15Anybody ever smoke them? All right. If you find them every now and then, it shouldn't be a problem,
28:21but you don't want that to be the standard. So stems come out. All right. So then here is where the
28:29magic happens. I start thinking about I want the cigar to start a certain way. I want it to change
28:36platforms in the middle and do something else for me. Then I want it to end a certain way. And when
28:41you look up at these leaves up close, what you will be able to tell is the differences in color
28:46and differences in feel. So if you do choose to come up here and want to roll a cigar with your
28:51bud, then you will get a chance to see the leaves up close and you can kind of see how they differ.
28:56And what you're seeing me do now is kind of like chopping chives, chopping onions. You know what I'm
29:01saying? Making sure the skin is off and getting a shape to it. Okay. And once that piece is done,
29:07then we start the process of actually rolling the cigar. All right. Now this is where the geometry
29:15piece comes in. But it looks a little simple, but it can get a little complicated. All right. Once we get
29:22here, we land the foundation. Remember I told you the point of the binder is to do what? Hold stuff
29:27together. Okay. All right. So what we're trying to do is hold the blend that we talking together. So
29:33pretty much the pot that we got it in right now. Okay. And what we're doing at this moment is trying
29:40to make sure that the cigar burns correctly, doesn't split apart on us, and hold all of the ingredients
29:48together. And that's what we're going for. And this method here, I think the sisters will probably
29:58have a better go at rolling these at first, because it's really hard on your hands at first to get the
30:02dexterity right. A lot of the brothers come in and touch the cigar leaves like they finna grab a weed
30:08whacker, or they're going to start up their zero turn, and they end up tearing the leaves. You got to
30:13treat it like you're trying to ask your wife, can you go hang out with the boys on Friday night,
30:20and you've been doing too much this week. So you got to ease into it. Baby, do your mind. You know
30:25what I'm saying? Baby, do your mind. Okay. So think about that. If you come up here to try to make a
30:30cigar, just think about it. Touch it as softly as you can. And what you should have with a binder is
30:37what looks like a fingerprint. And this is what you see when you see the ash. It should be like
30:44a cylinder, if you will. Now, this same process is replicated by putting tobacco binders inside of
30:50a press. They put them in like a mold to press them. But over time, your dexterity gets good
30:55enough with your hands where you can kind of mimic this process via physically pressing down. Y'all
30:59following me? All right, cool. So now, we go back through, and this is the first time we have used
31:05the Chevetta. What we want to do now is trim the hedges. We want to make sure that the construction
31:09is good. All right? Now, y'all seen how sharp that knife is. It cut through this like skin. This is
31:15like feels like a little like leather, if you will. All right, from there, we go back in to make sure
31:20that this dexterity is right. What we're using now is a non-acid fruit pectin, which is you'll put in
31:28like gelatin. You have a couple other options like Arabic gum, which is the active ingredient in chewing gum.
31:35So anybody that got chewing gum in their mouth, you can use Arabic gum to put on here. You can also
31:41use other products like aloe vera and honey mixture. And typically with Nicaraguan tobacco,
31:49I use the honey and aloe vera option just because it kind of does a little bit of that overarching spice
31:58sometimes. I mean, it just sweet on the tongue as well. And a lot of the infused cigars like that you
32:04will kind of recommend to some beginner smokers or women or men who like more of a assorted flavor
32:12type of cigar smoking. They use those types of mixtures with like food grade like flavoring
32:18for taste. But this is where it holds it together. So it's no, it's no licking at all. So how you think
32:23about the other way, no licking. It's just better all around. If you're using the other, you should use
32:30this. And you can get non-acid fruit pectin from the local grocery store. And if you're like in
32:37Miami or any place that has a botanica, you can get Arabic gum pretty easy. And you can make your own
32:42chewing gum if you ain't never thought about that. So now that's what we use to hold it together. So now I
32:48told y'all we got wrapper binder and filler. We got the filler and binder. Now the last thing which is
32:54kind of like the most important part for some people is the wrapper. And that's what people see.
33:00Okay. All right. Now far as taste wise, in my honest opinion, I've heard numerous of stats about this,
33:08about how much the wrapper constitutes for taste. And I've came up with a farce. I think that people
33:17believe because the wrapper is on top and it's the thing that's in direct contact with their mouth,
33:24that that's primarily contributing to the taste. I would disagree. I would say that it's probably about
33:3010% of the total of the total process. But the fillers, the fillers and the binder plays a huge,
33:37huge part in what you should be pairing it with, with what you're smelling and primarily your taste.
33:43If you're romanticizing the process holistically and not smoking for necessarily for a buzz. Okay.
33:48Y'all following me? All right. So now we're going to put the wrapper on and then I'll take some
33:52questions or whoever want to come try themselves. All right. So the same process as before taking the
33:57wrapper loose, but with the wrapper, I don't do my little fancy trick I just did when I first started.
34:02I take it all the way to the end because wrappers, you don't, you don't want to have any holes
34:08on the outside because again, we're trying to present our best self. All right. So now we're
34:16putting the wrapper on. Now this time before we do any kind of, any kind of pudding and cigar,
34:23we do the hibachi tricks. So now all the people who like, y'all like hibachi? Y'all eat hibachi?
34:28Okay. So now I get a chance to do some, you know, you know, you know, all right, my little cutting thing
34:33and with the shaveta. And it's a very fun thing, y'all. It's very meditative. So again,
34:39when I was telling y'all about this is one of our ancestors' crafts. So to be able to do this now,
34:47after I could have been doing anything else and keeping our traditions alive,
34:51is a very, very beautiful thing for me. So now once we got the cut, it's what we kind of looking for.
34:57So now you probably wonder, for some people may want to know what I, what I do with the rest of that,
35:02all of the scrap tobacco. That's what you make chew with. That's what you, you know,
35:07you can make some chew with that. You can, you can press it down and make a plug with it.
35:11If you got your cousin, you know what I'm saying, your little nephew or something who want to roll
35:15them a J, you can, you know, put that to the side for that. You know what I'm saying?
35:20You can actually use it for bandages. You know, you can dry it and use it for bandages.
35:25You can put it in oils, you know, like for, for skin rashes or antiseptic. So you never really
35:30throw none of this stuff away. All of these scraps. You take all of the stems, as I mentioned before,
35:35and use them for like anise, use them for like insect repellents. So now, here we go,
35:40putting the wrapper on. So now what we're looking for is like a cylinder. All right.
35:45So in this particular order, I'm going right to left.
35:52And we pretty much put the wrapper on. Again, I told y'all, it's, the tobacco kind of stretched like
35:57leather a little bit. So it's supposed to feel like leather and you put the glue here to make
36:02sure that it holds together. All right. So now, once we have the wrapper on, what we do now is to
36:13get all of the bumps and bruises out of the cigar. We don't want to make sure that it has any lumps
36:18because it contributes to a bad smoking experience.
36:21And I'm using a pigtail for my cigar smokers. Anybody familiar with the pigtail? All right.
36:28So I'll tell y'all a quick little story about my grandpa. My grandpa, his favorite thing was eating
36:35cracklings. So he, you know, he used to hunt pigs and hogs and stuff all the time. And he used to roll
36:41his joints before it was like a reefer to smoke. They used to smoke this stuff called rabbit tobacco.
36:47I don't know if y'all heard of rabbit tobacco. It's a plant that y'all can just kind of find
36:51outside into an old field. If y'all go out into a field in the next couple of weeks,
36:55look for, it looked like an old cotton stalk, like dry cotton stalk. It's like white as gray.
37:02They, they take that plant. It's called love everlasting or rabbit tobacco. You can smoke that.
37:07It's very bitter. And it kind of gives you like a, uh, a head high very similar to like smoking some
37:13old reefer, like some old, yeah. And, uh, and it was the reefer before reefer and, but he, he rolled
37:18it in onion skins and he always put a, a pigtail on the end so he could just bite it off. And that,
37:25and that's so when I roll in person, you know, to kind of keep the family's legacy alive, the recipe,
37:30I do the pigtail. And that's the piece that I want to leave with y'all about this process.
37:35Cigar making, uh, black people, uh, is one of those crafts that if we don't participate more,
37:43we'll lose it. If we don't open up more shops and reach in more brands, we'll lose it. It's very
37:50similar to like, uh, nearest green and uncle nearest. If we didn't have, if we didn't have funny and her
37:57family and just decided that they wanted to keep that alive and, and, and we allude, we'd have lost
38:02that recipe. You know, we would have lost that recipe. So y'all these, these things here, my
38:08family's been doing this for a lot, a long time. This is my life's work. Um, this is what I'll do
38:13till God calls me home, you know, and, um, I'm 34 and it's a lot of history. It's a lot of stories,
38:21uh, for me personally, that kind of is caught up in this, you know, my fifth generation grandfather,
38:27my grandfather's, you know, rolling style, my grandmother's perspectives on putting food
38:32together and preparing food and all of the stories that get told between you and your families
38:37and you and your friends on a cool day. This is how we preserve our culture. I think that we've done
38:42a lot of oral telling our stories. I think now we got to start writing them down more. And, um, that's
38:49what my family has done for me. And, uh, this moment for me kind of is like a, a tribute to being able to
38:56make something last, you know, and hopefully Lord say the same, we'll be doing this another 139 years.
39:04So, you know, I already did my part by bringing my kids in. So the sixth generation has already
39:09started. So, uh, with that, if any, if y'all want to have some questions or somebody wants to come up
39:14here and try to make a cigar, you want to come up here and try to make one brother, come on.
39:18And I definitely thank y'all for, uh, for taking the time to come up to the Sway Lounge
39:29and come kick it with me. I didn't think, uh, I didn't know who was going to come.
39:33Uh, when I got the call, I was like, man, some, some people would be interested in, you know,
39:37some cigar making. And then, uh, y'all beautiful faces chose to come kick it with me for a little bit
39:42in time. And, uh, I tell y'all I'm eternally grateful. Brother, you a, you a big fella, bro. Come on,
39:47man. I thought I would be, come on, big man. All right. I mean, I appreciate you, man. So take a,
39:53take a seat in the cockpit and we'll get started. It's going to hold brother. All right, cool. That's
39:58that old church bench right there. Good man. Yes, sir. So what I'm going to do is so, so the table
40:03don't slip up under you, this rolling table. I'm going to sit this tile. You got like mesh pants on,
40:09so it ain't going to stain, it ain't going to stain you. So what I'm going to, what I'm going to do is
40:11sit this tile up under here so you can try to have some, have some grip on the, on the table.
40:18All right. So now, what kind of cigar are you trying to make? What you normally drink or smoke?
40:25Mild to strong. What's, what's your favorite drink?
40:28Old fashioned. What kind of, uh, what kind of,
40:32uh, okay. All right. So we're going to make a blend for that. All right. So now I'm going to start it.
40:42And then now I'm going to get up close up on you. So now we had that conversation at first. You see
40:47where these veins are here. All right. I want you to slowly pull it down. But as you move down,
40:53move your hands down. All right. Now he got some big hands. We're going to see.
40:56All right. He doing all right. You got it. Your wife here?
41:04You single? Okay. He's single. All right, ladies. Well, if anybody's single, you know, brother,
41:08brother, brother, uh, brother, it's like he's decent with his hands right now. He ain't told
41:12the tobacco leave. So that's good.
41:20Good. All right. That's good. All right. So remember I told you at first, like that type of
41:26so you can like, if you had that at home, you can, you can actually like, uh, burn it.
41:31So what you want to do is you want to just stretch them out like this and then just lay them flat.
41:35Remember I told you, light skin inside, dark skin outside. All right. Cool. So now I bet. Now you got
41:41that. Then you lay at an angle. I want you to think about this right there. All right. You following
41:48what I'm saying? All right. Cool. Now you just spread that tobacco leaf out to, to look cool to you.
41:56All right. How you feel about it? Good. All right. Cool. All right. So what we're going to do,
42:03you said now, if you had to pick, what you going to drink today?
42:08You're going to drink some bourbon today. Okay. All right. He's a comedy today. He's
42:11drinking some bourbon today. All right. So we're going to give you a little more,
42:14a little more stronger than, than what I was making. Okay. So we're going to give you some more
42:18on the fuller, fuller body side. Okay. So this, so this is your Lajero now. So now what I want you to do is
42:24smell that for me and tell me what you're smelling.
42:32So wood. All right. So we got wood. What kind of wood?
42:42Now to me, it smells like cherry.
42:47All right. So that's your Lajero. So that's going to be for your combustion. Okay.
42:50All right. So then we, then now we're going to do your Seiko.
42:55We're going to do three of those. All right. So the first thing I need you to do,
42:58we're going to sit down to the side. So now when you, when each leaf you pick up, fold in half.
43:03You see that? You see that? You see the dark side of the leaf? The light side of the leaf. Fold.
43:08Take that little stem out to where you get that frog leg right there. Okay. Now you get,
43:12then you can hold that in your left hand and you do that with each one of them.
43:15Hey, y'all. He doing all right. Hey, yeah. He doing all right. He doing good. He doing good.
43:20So now, man. So some fun facts, man. Most, uh, cigar rollers are in the factory. What's up, big new?
43:26Everything good. So most, uh, most cigar rollers in the factory are probably rolling about 150 to 300
43:33of these a day. And the crazy thing is they probably getting between 25 and 50 cents a cigar
43:40abroad. Yeah. I know it's crazy, ain't it? Yeah. So, uh, so a lot of this stuff here is, uh,
43:48still done by hand and it holds up entire economies. And my brother doing good enough. I ain't even
43:54necessarily got to watch them too close. He's doing good. I ain't heard no crack of him say,
43:57I don't shoot yet. He doing all right. So most people do this by speed. Uh, so then in Cuba,
44:04you have levels to it. You have a level like a beginner, level one, level nine. And it's all about
44:12competency and ability to roll different sizes and sizes or by totals, uh, for the point of that.
44:18All right. You got it. Okay, cool. So now you've seen what I did at the bottom.
44:22All right. So now what you want to do is you here on top, twist in the opposite direction. Got it?
44:35All right. Good. So now, so separate them. I'm going to add it. There we go. There we go. All right.
44:43So now you remember the colors of the leaves now. All right. So if you want it stronger,
44:48what we do is here, this is, this is a Seiko. You lay it here. Okay. Then your Lajero, you can see
44:55that's the darker one. You want to go up top. If you want it to get stronger in the back of the cigar,
45:00then you put the bigger end up top. If you want it to get, if you want it to be stronger in this,
45:06at this first third, then you put the water in at the bottom. You kind of follow what I'm saying?
45:10Now that's, yeah, back and forth until, until it's at the size that is comfortable for you.
45:14And that's the kind of, um, at that particular point, it's kind of like your particular, uh,
45:23you got a taste level. You wanted to taste a certain way. Like for me, uh, man, uh, my, my auntie,
45:29man, makes some real, real good banana pudding. And with the banana pudding, she almost let her
45:35bananas get to a point where they, where they almost, uh, they too soft, actually. But when she
45:41makes the banana pudding, it's like, they gotta be a certain way before she put them in there.
45:45And then she always put plantains and banana pudding. I don't know if y'all ever had plantains
45:48and banana pudding, but it tastes really good. Okay, you got it. All right, do you want to take any of
45:52this off? So now when you think, now feel it for me. All right, so now when you feel it in your hand,
45:56which, what you got in your hand now, it's, it's going to be a really big cigar. Do you want a big cigar?
46:00Okay, all right, so now when you get it into the field, I'll probably go here. And that's when you
46:09start trimming off the edges a little bit. All right, so now you're going to try to roll it.
46:20Yep, so you sit it on here first. All right, you want to start at the end. Now you're doing good,
46:25bro. All right, so once you get it started, boom. Now roll.
46:46Okay.
46:47Good. All right, we want to make it, now we want to make, now you see how loose it feel?
46:57Now you got, you got some big hands. So I want you to press and roll to turn it over.
47:03So it can be, so make sure it don't come unglued. That's a good job. That's a good job. That's a good
47:10job. All right, so now what you, now that you're done with that, put up here, press the guillotine
47:22cutter down. Oh yeah, this is my favorite machine right here. Uh, this guillotine cutter, this guillotine
47:29cutter was made by Lewis Hampton V. A black man from Charleston, South Carolina came up with this style,
47:37this particular wedge, the wedge hens, they got patent to be used in cigar making now. I almost
47:43forgot to tell y'all that, man. That's very, very important. That's very, very important. So the cutter
47:48that we use now in the traditional cigar community came up, you know what I'm saying, by a black man.
47:53All right, so good job. All right, so cool. But this is the foot, the head of your cigar now. So what
47:58you want to do with that, you want to do that same thing. Now clip it, clip it right there. Right there.
48:03Watch your hands. I bet. All right, cool. So we on, we on, we on the crunch. So now turn, flip it back over for me.
48:13Make sure, so I can make sure you get through it all. Let me hurry up and get it, get it down for you.
48:18Say it again, the liquid. You, yeah, you, you, no, you finna get ready to use it now.
48:27Yeah, I have before. Yeah. Are you, I said, you, okay, you know something about that?
48:36Yeah. Okay, you came back from Columbia. Did you enjoy yourself?
48:41Okay, so now, remember, now here's the part that's the hard part. All right, take the knife.
48:50Roll. Okay, so I'll start. Boom. So cut, cut that way.
48:58Roll it. There we go. Roll it. Roll it. Okay. Now, now I'll cut down here.
49:06All right. Now roll your cigar onto it the same way. And y'all, this is what probably one of the
49:16funnest, the funnest parts right here. So when you're thinking about going into the cigar, cigar
49:20lounges from now on or smoking, just know that every cigar that y'all get made, somebody is sitting
49:24down here, uh, throwing it, uh, going through these. And the more tobacco that you use, this stuff can get
49:30wasted. People lose their jobs. You know, this is, you know, livelihoods I made off of, and this is the thing
49:35that I do for my, for my livelihood. And it seemed like he almost done. Okay, good. Now, now right here.
49:44And then you see what, now that's when you use your servietta again to cut. Boom.
49:51And then you can do the pigtail, like so.
49:58And then you did it. Hey, he didn't do bad for his first cigar. My eyes are way worse.
50:02Hey, my brother, you want to come right with me?
50:07And he did, he did, give my good brother a round of applause, man.
50:11And, uh, hey man, uh, so fun fact. So if y'all want to hit, hit the, hit the lotto,
50:18before you smoke any cigar, you always supposed to give somebody one. And you supposed to tell them if
50:24they hit, if they have, good luck to give you a call. That's the first cigar, uh, the first cigar
50:30of the day. I done had people get married. I done had people hit the scratch-offs. I done had people
50:35get job promotions off the very first cigar. So, bro, you hit the lotto, man. Don't forget me, bro.
50:40Uh, so people, I thank y'all so much for, uh, for taking the time, uh, to come and listen to me.
50:47Uh, it means a lot to me. Again, uh, I'm a sartorial tobacconist. I'm from Jackson, Mississippi.
50:52You know, uh, uh, uh, pride of the north side. You know what I'm saying? Uh, thank y'all for stopping
50:57by and hollering at me. I'll be in New Orleans. I live in New Orleans now. So throughout the week,
51:01I'll be at the festival, man. If you see me, uh, I'll be at a couple cigar lounges, man. Feel free to come
51:06stop by and have a cigar with me. Remember, uh, the history, this type of history is our history.
51:12And even if it's not a thing that you do often, it should be one of those things. And when you think
51:16about it, you know, you'll be like, man, black people really cultivated a space, uh, full of love,
51:20full of culture, uh, full of reverence. You know what I'm saying? For those who have came before us
51:26and for the people to come. God bless y'all. I hope y'all enjoyed.
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