With Jose Ernesto Aguilera At Humidores Habana
11 Dec
My Cuban routine is to spend time with my friends there, as much as possible. The rollers, the tabaqueros, the tobacco planters, the shopkeepers and the humidor artists.
So it was a pleasure to meet up with Jose Ernesto Aguilera, his assistant Alex and his team again and see the work in progress as well as the projects this decidedly crazy artist and friendly giant is working on.
We met a few times, the terrace at the Nacional is centre stage in Havana for cigar lovers and then along with Yannick, also a good friend of Jose Ernesto, spent some time at his workshop.
Happy to report that new buildings are being erected to house the painting and drying departments. Also, the aged wood supply is increasing as well, many house owners happy to get some money for old and interesting aged wood when renovating or tearing down their mansions.
Among the humidors we saw were interesting Government replica humidors with beautiful inlays as well as a funny idea turned into a humidor, the development of Humidores Habana from start to present and having an ebony figure of Alex as the winged sales rep on top.
Very practical as it serves also to pour rum into a glass …
The details are amazing and as Jose Ernesto put : This is a dream I had about our growth from a humble one man operation in a room to what we are now.
I can proudly state that one of his beautiful pieces of humidor art, the Ramon Allones Perfectos humidor has been acquired by me – Christmas came early this year …
Nino
The Ramon Allones piece is indeed a beauty. Congratulations Nino!
Best,
Michel
Merci Michel !
Rgds / Nino
That is the finest Christmas gift any man could dream of Nino! Congratulation’s!
That RA humidor is stunning. Congrats Nino! I think I’ll add a humidor from Jose Ernesto Aguilera’s shop on my bucket list. 🙂