See Also: My Blog Archives: February 2008Posted: 03:43 PM ET, February 29, 2008I had planned to hit up some of the key cigar shops this morning, like Partagas and Club Havana. This is where a lot of action happens during the festival. People just hang out, talk and smoke. It’s a good way to get information. Many people simply come to Havana for the festival to do that, they never attend the official events. Read more
Posted: 04:28 PM ET, February 28, 2008It was all about taste yesterday in Havana. I attended two tastings. One was a smoker in the El Laguito factory, the home of Cohiba cigars, and another was a tasting in the evening at the Nacional Hotel that I led promoting the idea of drinking Champagne while smoking cigars. Read more
Posted: 02:04 PM ET, February 27, 2008Sometimes I find it almost hard to believe that the cigars we buy in shops come from the rollers’ tables of cigar factories in Havana. When we buy the cigar, it’s almost as if we are standing right next to the roller and he or she is handing us the cigar. Read more
Posted: 03:00 PM ET, February 26, 2008I just got back from visiting the H. Upmann factory in Nuevo Vedado with some friends from Geneva, Switzerland. The main hermano was Arek Aboulian, whose family owns Raffi Cigars. The twenty-something spent three months working in Upmann a short while ago, and he knows just about everyone in the factory. Read more
Posted: 04:04 PM ET, February 25, 2008I woke up this morning in Havana in my hotel, the Melia Cohiba, and after a quick café con leche in the bar, I walked out onto the Malecon boulevard that skirts the sea in front of the city, and breathed the fresh sea air with a mixture of diesel and other smells of a bustling city. Read more
Posted: 10:53 AM ET, February 19, 2008The news last night about Fidel Castro retiring from political duties in Cuba does not come as a surprise. The word on the streets of Havana has been nothing else but that for months. In fact, his brother Raúl has been in real power since Fidel passed the baton to him in July 2006. Read more
Posted: 12:40 PM ET, February 15, 2008It was a cool trip to Cuba. I am back at home in Italy at the moment and posting my last video blog from the island. And I am sorry I left. There is so much to see and learn there, especially for a cigar smoker.
I hope you have enjoyed the blogging and got as much out of it as I did. Read more
Posted: 01:59 PM ET, February 13, 2008Like I didn’t have enough heavy food already after lunch with tobacco maestro Alejandro Robania. But the day after my visit to his plantation, I went to lunch with some friends at a big outdoor restaurant called El Palenque in the Siboney neighborhood of Havana. Read more
Posted: 11:39 AM ET, February 13, 2008Just to give you an idea of what the tobacco looks like going in the barns, check out this latest video. It’s awesome. Hiroshi Robaina, the grandson of tobacco guru Alejandro Robaina, took me for a walk through their three tobacco curing barns and I was speechless. Read more
Posted: 02:14 PM ET, February 12, 2008It wasn’t the first time that I smoked a “foreign cigar” with Alejandro Robaina, the great tobacco grower from Cuba’s Pinar del Río region. Alejandro is a curious man for 89-year-old and he’s always interested to try cigars from other areas in the world. Read more
Posted: 10:17 AM ET, February 11, 2008The tobacco in Robaina's fields looked so good last week. It was bright green, large sized, clean, and ripe. Hiroshi Robaina, 32, the grandson of the legendary tobacco grower Alejandro Romania, said that it was the best tobacco the family had seen in their fields in the last 15 years. Read more
Posted: 01:28 PM ET, February 08, 2008Most tobacco farmers in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio, the best tobacco region on the island, have their own fumas. They are the cigars that they make from their own tobacco. You can call it their “home reserve” or “riserva de familia.” They keep a small amount of the tobacco they are growing for the state and make cigars for themselves, family and friends. Read more
Posted: 11:45 AM ET, February 07, 2008It’s like going home when I visit Alejandro Robaina and his family, the famous tobacco growers in Pinar del Río. Alejandro, 89, is a warm and intelligent man with a heart of gold. I often said that there were three living icons in Cuba – Fidel Castro, Alejandro Robaina and Compay Segundo. Read more
Posted: 09:06 AM ET, February 06, 2008Is El Floridita the best bar on earth? New York has the Café Carlyle Hotel. Paris has the American Bar in the Ritz. And Los Angeles has Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. Sure those are cool. And the ambience, drinks and service are superb. Read more
Posted: 12:02 PM ET, February 05, 2008Hit up my first cigar shop yesterday. La Casa del Habano at Conde Villanueva is located in Old Havana near the Plaza San Francisco in a small hotel in a renovated colonial building once owned by a Spanish nobleman about 200 years ago. This place just blows you away with it history and character. Read more
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