2011/05 – Rollers, Memories, Bands and Cars

9 May

Virginia in Frankfurt

Maite banding my Diademas

Banded Salomones

May 2011

They say in Cuba : “Un tabaco sin anilla es como una casa sin balcon”.

That’s right; a cigar without a band is like a house without a terrace.

So I planned to have part of my custom rolled cigar collection banded for my own private pleasure or when I smoke with good friends or give away my cigars to trusted Aficionados.

Just like I always have liked to have monogrammed uniform shirts and custom tailored suits.

Call it a spleen, call it whatever you want, I like to have my stamp on things.

So I had a few hundred bands printed both with my name and the Flying Cigar name on the Cuban national colours and waited for a good chance to put them on some specially cherished bundles of 109’s, Diademas, Salomones and BHK’s I have stored.

After all, artists like Cueto, Taboada, Santos and others deserve a “terrace” and I wanted to give them a beautiful one.

The opportunity arose when a nice Cuban roller, Maite Mendoza, a former H.Upmann roller, happened to visit a nearby town and had the time to do it for me.A perfect Saturday, hot, blue skies and besides having a roller in town we also had a car fair.

Following a rolling session at our friendly local dealer, Tabak Walter in Alzey, who celebrated his 20-th year in the business and after we had visited the car fair in town and tried the latest BMW’s and Audi’s we retired to a quiet Café where she proceeded to expertly band a few hundred of my custom rolled.

I was left with enough bands to look forward to her visit once again to finish some more bundles.

They say in Spain : “El mundo es un pañuelo …” – It’s a small world.

Turned out we had met each other some five years ago when she assisted a private dinner with Don Alejandro Robaina and me at Mr Portmann’s 35-th anniversary 2006 in Switzerland as friend of another great roller, Juanita.

We knew that we had met, but it took some time to click as she was only present at that private dinner a few hours then.

So we enjoyed the déjà-vu, the memories of the great man and had a very pleasant afternoon reminiscing about old times and Cuba, past and present.

Just like when I the pleasure to greet Virginia Cansio again in Frankfurt earlier this month, a fantastic roller from Partagas that I have known for a few years now and smoking her perfect cigars was a Cuba-like feeling.

Memories again.

We first met in Cuba in 2005, I enjoyed the company and hospitality of her husband Carlos, then Vice-Director of La Corona, afterwards Director of Romeo y Julieta and she was our roller at the Cigar Cult Club Big Smoke event held at the Nassauer Hof Hotel in Wiesbaden where Larry Deleski, our friend and founder of ICC International Cigar Club was our guest.

Always a pleasure to meet her.

Rainer and I, both being retired & with time on our hands, took the chance to have a great day in Frankfurt, strolling around, having a good meal in Sachsenhausen at Wagner’s with me playing “Tourist guide” to Rainer in a city where I lived for almost 20 years right in the middle of it.

Memories again.

Nino