Smoke like a revolutionary
Pinar del Rio, Cuba
I AM SMOKING a cigar in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, a Montecristo, the cigar of choice of Che Guevara, the revolutionary. I have never smoked a cigar in my life. I rode a horse out to the tobacco plantation, a small, unruly beast, controlled, sort of, by a wiry, sun-weathered Cuban who speaks no English. A caballero, a genuine cowboy, I muse.
The Cuban man explaining everything about cigars tells how Fidel smoked Cohibas, the strongest and biggest cigar. Che preferred Partagas or Montecristos, for a mid-range smoke. Romeo y Julieta cigars are the mildest.
Tobacco leaves are air dried for 3 months in a thatched roof tobacco barn then sprayed with vanilla, rum, lemon juice, honey. Fermented in bales for 6 months to soften, then hand rolled into cigars, tree sap seals the final wrapper leaf. The Cuban guy deftly rolls, forms and cuts perfectly shaped cigars. I am instructed to first dip the end that I put in my mouth in honey produced by tiny ground bees, then light it and smoke it.
Roll the smoke around in your mouth. Swish it gently, savor the smoke, then let it blow back out of your mouth. I have no idea what this means or how to do it. Five French Canadian guys are on this cigar experience with me and they are laughing. “You’ve never smoked a cigar, have you?” they say. I try to talk but my mouth is full of cigar smoke. They offer tips, but I’m hopelessly incompetent, trying to do what they suggest. An amateur.
I pose for a photo of me smoking a Montecristo beside a poster of Che. When in Cuba, smoke like a Cuban. Or a revolutionary.