Cigars

[cynthialee]

So I have taken to trying my hand at growing tobacco and making home made Cigars.
Pretty easy to do and the homemade cigars I have made look pretty much just like the ones Clint was smoking in all those westerns.
But are they correct? I find myself wondering...

So where the cigars back in our time periods of interest much different than my cigars? Not like it is a complicated process; grow tobacco chop it up and wrap it in a leaf....

 

[Alden]

The binder, wrapper and filler?

In any case, cigars go back in the West as far as tobacco itself though I think pipes were the primary method for smoking up until cigarettes.

Guy I know grew some of his own -- never tried it but he said it was so strong he understood why natives would believe it was mystical as it made him dizzy.

 

[George]

Cigars were around in the 18th century, but snuff was the main tobacco product used, I think. Cigars were the product of choice in the 19th century, and cigarette were only invented ca 1830.

Pierre Lorillard establishes a business in New York City for processing pipe tobacco, cigars, and snuff in 1760.

Some sources say Gen. Israel "Old Put" Putnam introduced the country to cigars when he brought some back from a British campaign in Cuba and gave them to customers of his brewery and tavern.

"The South-Carolina GAZETTE
November 7, 1768
GRIFFITH & CAPE; HAVE IMPORTED.In the ship Mary, Capt. G,”¦ Blank books, writing paper. Mogull and Henry the VIII playing cards; walnuts, cigars , gerkins, ketchup, oil in quart and pint bottles. Durharm mustard."

I have no idea what 18th-century cigars looked like, it would be interesting to find out.

Spence

 

[Brokennock]

The lack of curing,aging, and fermenting are what made another poster's friend's cigars so strong.

To my understanding cigars were around in the mid to late 18th century but were primarily a Spanish thing. Then in the early to mid 19th century they started being imported here from Spain and the Spanish influenced Caribbean islands, but were mostly for rich folks and city people. This being primarily "normal" cigars, torpedo or blunt ended with a filler a binder and a wrapper. The little "trumpetas" or cheroots it sounds like Miss Lee is rolling could have been around at any point, most likely sold in bulk and made of filler and wrapper leftover or rejected from, making full size cigars.

I used to work in a cigar and pipe store, plus this is the land of the "best cigar wrappers in the world," Connecticut sun grown or shade grown broadleaf (of course it's only "the best" if you agree with the market, manufacturers, and aficionados, but taste is subjective) so I will see what I can find out for you.

 

[tenngun]

How are you curing it? I grew some years ago and it was just plain nasty. Cut it with sumac bark some sweet grass sage and cedar and smoked it in catlinite it wasnt bad. Plain it could gag a magot.

 

[Alden]

Cure it? Of what!? Tobacco Mosaic Virus!?!?

I don't know what my buddy did with his but my Dad cured tobacco in the house once and drove us out of it with the smell.

I suspect a pack of Backwoods Smokes is probably about as 18th C. as you need be.

 

[tenngun]

First back woodds I had when they came out were pretty good. With in a few years not so much. But I like a pipe and only smoke a cigar now and then. World of difference in how the tabbaco taste by the slow drying and ageing of the leaf..This is the 'curing'
Latikia is hung in rooms and smoked, Perrique is ferrmented then dryied.Navy is pressed and compacked. Many bulies are rolled and dried while flat leaf are alowed to dry slowly.
What ever the steps to turning arkansas leaf it to somthing fit to smoke I missed it. Maybe it was my land. Perrique can only be grown in three parisihes, and the best latikia is grewn in crete.
Might be Cynthia Lees Washington soil is just a might better then my flint and leaf litter ozark soil.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Cigars were probably imported prior to the 1760's. Here is a link on cigar and Tobacco History prior to 1761, and it continues from 1760-1860. It appears that the first cigars appear in the British Colonies of America in the first half of the 18th century, but would've been smuggled from Spanish sources. The British capture of Hispaniola yielded a large amount of tobacco and probably cigars. Israel Putnam reportedly arrives in The Colonies with seed for growing cigar tobacco and 30,000 cigars in 1762. By 1770 cigar use is much more common.

It appears that the "cheroot" style of cigar (what you mentioned you see Mr. Eastwood often smoke and also the "Backwoods" brand style) was probably common and by 1770 "paste" cigars (cigar tobacco wrapped in paper) would've been very popular, and made at home. (Something like a thin, Swisher Sweet I'd imagine.)

Pipe smoking and snuff were far more popular in Britain as tobacco was expensive, and it was more economical to smoke it or to take a "pinch" of snuff. The reason I suggest that "cigars" of the 18th century were probably thin is due to the cost of the tobacco used in each cigar at that time. Note the size of the cigars in the illustration at the top of the page in the second link.

(Chewing tobacco was also known and used, probably due to some of the poor quality stuff coming out of the colonies to England.)

One should also note that a large amount of tobacco was shipped from the British Colonies in America to the Netherlands, as the Dutch paid better, and the Dutch have been known to be very good cigar makers for a very long time.... perhaps the importation of cigars came out of the Netherlands, and not the Spanish Empire.

LD

 

[Alden]

Whilst it's true that cigars were found and adopted by Columbus' men please remember it is tobacco that helped stake the US colonies and pipes were everywhere here, even for the borrowing in taverns. My kit includes 16th, 17th, and 18th C. pipes, depending, and I did buy Backwoods Smokes once or twice as I do, indeed, enjoy better cigars regularly.

 

[nit wit]

In Cuba it is said their cigars are rolled on the thighs of virgins. :shocked2: How you rolling yours?? :haha: :haha:
Nit Wit

 

[tenngun]

At St Augistine in Floraa I bought some cigars off a cuban exlie who was in his 60s. It was from hondoran leaf grewn from cuban seeds. They were great!
I didnt ask him about his sex life, and he rolled them on a table. Had some cuban when I was in australia in the navy. They were not any better then that gentelmans...I dont think the rolling surface changed the flavor :haha:

 

[MSW]

the cigars smoked by the iconic gunslinger were, I believe, available to the general public. they were called "Perodi" and came from Italy (this was in the mid and late seventies) ... I smoked them many years ago when I jumped out of airplanes for a living, and a box of five fit very well in the upper chest pocket of the fatigue blouse. they tasted pretty good, but produced a smoke which would probably be classified as a weapon of mass destruction: guaranteed to shorten a boring staff meeting (we were allowed to smoke back then - I'm pretty sure you can no longer use tobacco inside any DoD building ... don't know if you can smoke 'in the field')

CynthiaLee's soil is probably pretty good for tobacco, but she needs to rotate the fields religiously: this plant takes a lot out of the soil! I'd build a small drying shed (think mini tobacco barn) and dry the leaves.

by the way, the best wrapper is grown in north central mass, and the best cigars are no longer made in cuba - check out the Jamaican stuff (if you can afford the cost!)

make good smoke!

 

[Alden]

Have had Cubans. Thighs notwithstanding, they are not better than, nor even as good anymore I personally would not say, as those made elsewhere. For a benchmark my regulars have been Arturo Fuente Panatela Fina (discontinued), Arturo Fuente Churchill, Arturo Fuente Flor Fina 8-5-8, Brickouse Robusto, and the Don Tomas Cameroon Collection Perfecto #3 (apparently also discontinued).

 

[cynthialee]

Yes I cured it, but no fermentation as I do not like a perique.
Curing is simple enough, just control the humidity where you have it curing 60% humidity or so, wait for it to turn brown.

 

[cynthialee]

You just reminded me that my dad would occasionally buy Parodi cigars. Just looked it up and you can still buy them.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Don't know if I'm going ff here but this is a true cigar story.
I have a friend, an ml'er, who is essentially a non-smoker. But when he goes deer hunting several cigars are part of his gear. He smokes them while on his stand. And, he has filled his tags every year since childhood. Not sure if the smoke smell attracts the deer or if it camoflages the human odor. :idunno: But it works for him.

 

[crockett]

Well first off....DON'T SMOKE, it will get you in the end. That said, I suppose a cigar or two a year isn't too harmful. Those long stems on the clay pipes- that was to keep you away from tobacco :grin:
Over in Tampa FL- Yarbor City- is a cigar museum and they have a couple of guys rolling cigars. I suppose you could contact them about the "fine art".
I thought the NDN's used both pipes and cigars, so they get the credit for inventing them. Years ago, (I'm dating myself) there were tabacco barns all over the South. Sort of loose sided barns where the wind could blow through and they hung the tobacco BUT...that might have just been for the filler. Up in Connecticut they grew a lot of tobacco along the Connecticut River, all under cloth covers (shade tobacco) which I was told was used for cigar wrappers. So, it must have been a different type or handled differently, I never saw a southern tobacco barn up in Connecticut.
They paid kids $1 per hour to pick the tobacco under those covers. You got a bail of water to drink from keeping you from passing out (real hot under the covers). The soil in CT was supposed to be identical to Cuba- so I was told. Probably a tale.
Then there are all the NM senoritas charming the socks off the mountain men- they smoked "cigarettes" but they were wrapped in corn husks- not sure how to make them.

 

[Shooey]

I've heard the same thing about smoking a pipe on stand...it can make deer curious.

 

[Luke MacGillie]

In the Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly Vol 18 #3 there is a very good article titled Cigarettes in the West. At least in the Spanish southwest tobacco wrapped in paper goes back to the 3d quarter of the 18th Century.

 

[Alden]

IIRC paper and tobacco go back almost as far as tobacco with colonists here.