2010/05 – Reynaldo in Germany

16 May

Sign of Quality

Reynaldo in Germany

Jars in the Office

Andreas & Portmann 40 Jar

May 2010

While I am fortunate enough to have Andreas & the pharmacy right next door to smoke, there’s an experience I’d love to have more often here in Germany and that is just driving after my gym work-out to meet Reynaldo, the renowned first class roller from Havana’s Hostal Conde de Villanueva, have a good talk, smoke a cigar, grab some Cimarrones and be back home in under half an hour !

Reynaldo & sweet sticks

Good to meet up again !

Reynaldo & his tour “guide” Önder

Reynaldo is back on a tour of Germany, where I first met him in Mainz in 2003.

Since, we have met many times in Havana for cigars, bundles, café & añejo and developed a friendship.

So it was a great pleasure to meet him back on German soil again. It was in a giant shopping mall called LOOP, near Darmstadt that thrives in aeronautical design, lots of airplane models and even original Lufthansa aircraft seats to relax on. Haven’t seen a Mall that gigantic ever since leaving Texas. At least not in Germany.

But you can keep Texas – the good thing about Mall’s in Germany is that the Café’s have …. Smoking sections :- )) So after lunch, I enjoyed a PL PC with coffee and cake in one of the Mall’s Café’s.

LOOP Mall

LOOP Mall

Reynaldo is enjoying his tour, having been in Düsseldorf with the Benden’s, in the Cologne Casa, and looking forward to see Christine Klever in Nürnberg.

Reynaldo in his element

He had a gig rolling cigars at a wine estate an hours drive from here, but drinking & driving at night is not my preferred cigar.

So we enjoyed having a good conversation after lunch break and I presented him with a box of fine sweet Swiss “puros” – fantastic Colorado brown sticks from Gottlieben and passed along regards from the Portmann’s .

Reynaldo at LOOP

Reynaldo at LOOP

A few days before I had met Andreas to give him his Jar of the Portmann 40 Robustos – nice, his is # 87, mine # 88, I know he’d love that number, but I’m keeping it ………….

Unwrapping the jar

I’m keeping mine

Nice, relaxed and long evening in the office smoking good cigars with a bottle of Mackay Whisky that Stephanie was kind enough to bring from the Maldives – salty, peaty, with some traces of volcanic ash.

Nino