Cigars Come of Age
No one wants to hear they’re getting older. But in the cigar-making world, age has recently taken on a new—and far more positive—dynamic. We now want our cigars, and the tobaccos from which they’re made, to have a little time in the rearview.
Of course, the aging process begins as soon as tobacco leaves are harvested. First they’re dried, then sorted by type, size and color; once categorized, they’re stacked into piles called pilónes (or “pylons”), where a compost-type fermentation takes place. After being put into bales and aged further, the brittle tobaccos are brought back to life with water mist, making them pliable enough to be rolled into cigars.
But aging a cigar is a step further still. Different tobaccos age differently, as do various cigar shapes. The Fuente Companies’ owner and chairman, Carlos “Carlito” Fuente Jr., takes great pride in the different aging rooms, for different styles, at the company’s factory in Santiago, in the Dominican Republic. Short, thick Hemingways are aged in open-ended cedar bins, for example, while the OpusX cigars pass the time in closed cedar mini-vaults. No matter the technique, aging finished cigars merges and mellows
