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This was an amazing trip, you really get even more of an appreciation for all of this after you see how it works from the ground up. We arrived at Camp Camacho (in the Jamastran Valley) on the 19th, became acclimated with our accomodations and relaxed after a long day of traveling. We fratenized with the other guests,who were all retailers, which made Alex and Myself a little weary since we are an online catalog retailer, and not too well liked by their community. But we represented ourselves well and made the peace pretty easily over cigars and Flor de Cano Rum. Afterall, we were all there because we love Cigars and want to learn as much as possible, so it seemed business was put on the back burners and comrodery was on the forefront. This can easily be a long story, so I'll keep it fairly short.
The first day we left the armed guards at the Camp Camacho gate and drove to the Corojo fields that were marked by another gate "Corojo" and armed guards toting Old M-16s and big single barrel shotguns. Our first stop was at the greenhouses of Corojo plantlings, and listened to Christian explain the process from seed to field. We then toured around the various Sun Grown and Shade Grown fields, listening and learning about the growing process. One interesting bit of information was in regards to some of the Sun Grown Corojo wrapper leaves. They pluck all the suckers and flowers from the plants so the nutrients get concentrated into the leaves, and by being outside in the wind and elements, the leaves grow stronger and thicker. All these nutrients make for a more flavorful leaf, but in consequence it doesn't burn as well. So they sacrifice burn for flavor; as opposed to the Shade grown, where the plants are out of the elements and babied, producing a more delicate wrapper. From the fields we went to the Barns, where row after row of tobacco was being strung and hung to dry. The sweet smell of curing tobacco is a smell I won't soon try to forget. Here Alex was lucky enough to have a freshly lit Cigar, so when Christian asked, "Anyone have a lit cigar?" Alex answered before the question was finished being asked. So Christian quickly deveined a leaf and put a new wrapper onto Alex'a already lit cigar. He said this is a way to sample and taste to progress of flavor in the Curing tobacco. After seeing various stages of drying tobacco and numerous fields, we head back to Camp Camacho for lunch. After lunch we drove to the coral for a little horseback riding. I was a little intimidated after a horse back riding experience I had with my family through the Forests in Belize. I'll just say that at one point I was pulling so hard on the Reins I could look my horse in the eye and feel his breath on my face at a full gallop, until he finally galloped into a tree, at one point we were laughing so hard eachother we became weak, and were rag dolls on the back of horses, I didn't think we were going to make it out oif that one. So naturally when they asked if we wanted a spirited horse, I became nervous but still, grabbed the most spirited horse they had. Before leaving the coral one guy was bucked off his horse before his feet were in the stirrups. My stomach dropped. Turned out the ride was pretty smooth and I actually, for the first time in my life I was in rythm with a horse when galloping. It was a good day! I felt bad for Alex because he looked like he weighed as much as his horse and his stirrups were so high we looked like a jockey, poor horse...poor Alex :? After riding horses we head back to camp for the rest of the night. I ended having to kill a scorpion that was in the house, but I felt bad for one of the ladies who was trying to sleep in her room. She woke up to a tickling on her arm, when she looked down she saw a black scorpion crawl off of her and head down into the sheets. She hung out with us for about an hour and a half after that drinking Rum and tequila.
The next day we hit up the fermenting barns, box factory and Rolling factory. I have never smelled amonia like this before, It's amazing that people actually work in that environment. This was probably my favorite day, to learn about the how the tobacco is processed and aged and fermented was really amazing. But I think my all time favorite part of the trip was to go into the Corojo Aging room, where there were wall to wall cubbies of 4000 sticks each, that was the sweetest smell and after that, the aroma of that room was apparent in all the Camacho Corojo Cigars I smoked. We smoked 11/18's, 07/05's, Diploma's among a few other brands. I averaged more than ten cigars a day, a first for me and I'm sure not the last, but definatley not a habbit I'm going to carry on. The second best part of the trip for me, and I think I can speak for Alex, is when the two of us had a meeting with Don Julio, and Christian. It's not everyday I can smoke a cigar with men of that stature, and not something I'm going to forget. Another fascinating fact was that we were told their cigars, from the ground up would pass through more than 500 hands, it's a long and tedious process... :shock:
It was a great trip that I'll hopefully get to experience again many times, the only bad part of the trip was our long delay back to Chicago, which was hit with about 17 inches of snow, not nearly as bad as the East coast, but not a cat walk either. There are worse places to get stuck than Miami, so I can't complain too much.
This was an amazing trip, you really get even more of an appreciation for all of this after you see how it works from the ground up. We arrived at Camp Camacho (in the Jamastran Valley) on the 19th, became acclimated with our accomodations and relaxed after a long day of traveling. We fratenized with the other guests,who were all retailers, which made Alex and Myself a little weary since we are an online catalog retailer, and not too well liked by their community. But we represented ourselves well and made the peace pretty easily over cigars and Flor de Cano Rum. Afterall, we were all there because we love Cigars and want to learn as much as possible, so it seemed business was put on the back burners and comrodery was on the forefront. This can easily be a long story, so I'll keep it fairly short.
The first day we left the armed guards at the Camp Camacho gate and drove to the Corojo fields that were marked by another gate "Corojo" and armed guards toting Old M-16s and big single barrel shotguns. Our first stop was at the greenhouses of Corojo plantlings, and listened to Christian explain the process from seed to field. We then toured around the various Sun Grown and Shade Grown fields, listening and learning about the growing process. One interesting bit of information was in regards to some of the Sun Grown Corojo wrapper leaves. They pluck all the suckers and flowers from the plants so the nutrients get concentrated into the leaves, and by being outside in the wind and elements, the leaves grow stronger and thicker. All these nutrients make for a more flavorful leaf, but in consequence it doesn't burn as well. So they sacrifice burn for flavor; as opposed to the Shade grown, where the plants are out of the elements and babied, producing a more delicate wrapper. From the fields we went to the Barns, where row after row of tobacco was being strung and hung to dry. The sweet smell of curing tobacco is a smell I won't soon try to forget. Here Alex was lucky enough to have a freshly lit Cigar, so when Christian asked, "Anyone have a lit cigar?" Alex answered before the question was finished being asked. So Christian quickly deveined a leaf and put a new wrapper onto Alex'a already lit cigar. He said this is a way to sample and taste to progress of flavor in the Curing tobacco. After seeing various stages of drying tobacco and numerous fields, we head back to Camp Camacho for lunch. After lunch we drove to the coral for a little horseback riding. I was a little intimidated after a horse back riding experience I had with my family through the Forests in Belize. I'll just say that at one point I was pulling so hard on the Reins I could look my horse in the eye and feel his breath on my face at a full gallop, until he finally galloped into a tree, at one point we were laughing so hard eachother we became weak, and were rag dolls on the back of horses, I didn't think we were going to make it out oif that one. So naturally when they asked if we wanted a spirited horse, I became nervous but still, grabbed the most spirited horse they had. Before leaving the coral one guy was bucked off his horse before his feet were in the stirrups. My stomach dropped. Turned out the ride was pretty smooth and I actually, for the first time in my life I was in rythm with a horse when galloping. It was a good day! I felt bad for Alex because he looked like he weighed as much as his horse and his stirrups were so high we looked like a jockey, poor horse...poor Alex :? After riding horses we head back to camp for the rest of the night. I ended having to kill a scorpion that was in the house, but I felt bad for one of the ladies who was trying to sleep in her room. She woke up to a tickling on her arm, when she looked down she saw a black scorpion crawl off of her and head down into the sheets. She hung out with us for about an hour and a half after that drinking Rum and tequila.
The next day we hit up the fermenting barns, box factory and Rolling factory. I have never smelled amonia like this before, It's amazing that people actually work in that environment. This was probably my favorite day, to learn about the how the tobacco is processed and aged and fermented was really amazing. But I think my all time favorite part of the trip was to go into the Corojo Aging room, where there were wall to wall cubbies of 4000 sticks each, that was the sweetest smell and after that, the aroma of that room was apparent in all the Camacho Corojo Cigars I smoked. We smoked 11/18's, 07/05's, Diploma's among a few other brands. I averaged more than ten cigars a day, a first for me and I'm sure not the last, but definatley not a habbit I'm going to carry on. The second best part of the trip for me, and I think I can speak for Alex, is when the two of us had a meeting with Don Julio, and Christian. It's not everyday I can smoke a cigar with men of that stature, and not something I'm going to forget. Another fascinating fact was that we were told their cigars, from the ground up would pass through more than 500 hands, it's a long and tedious process... :shock:
It was a great trip that I'll hopefully get to experience again many times, the only bad part of the trip was our long delay back to Chicago, which was hit with about 17 inches of snow, not nearly as bad as the East coast, but not a cat walk either. There are worse places to get stuck than Miami, so I can't complain too much.
