Field Trip: Drew Estate's "Connecticut Barnsmoker" cigar event [South Windsor, Connecticut]

Today's post is a special treat - it's a review of an all-day, immersive look into the world of tobacco growing that took place on Saturday, August 6th at the Foster Family Farm in South Windsor, Connecticut. It's hosted by La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate, the fine folks who make a host of cigars reviewed on this blog. Drew Estate and its founder, Jonathan Drew, have a couple of these large-scale events throughout the year in various places to highlight growing conditions and processes, to celebrate the brand and the tasty cigars they have, and to spotlight the various farms and techniques used to produce cigars. They have three this year - one in Florida, one in Connecticut, and one in Kentucky (presumably to highlight their Kentucky Fire Cured cigars - awesome!)

This event has been hyped up for some time - tickets were at a premium and very sought-after. Luckily, I was in front of my computer at the time they were released (and got a head start thanks to my use of Drew's Diplomat app) and was able to snag tickets for my brother Dan and I. They sold over 500 tickets! My brother and I were very eager to go, because we both have been smoking Drew Estate cigars for years. We were introduced to the brand simultaneously by my aunt's boyfriend Tom, who gave us our first Kuba Kuba, and by David Lafferty, Drew Estate communications czar who gave me my first Liga Undercrown in DC at a fundraiser for a Member of Congress. Fast forward four years, and here we are, smoking Drew cigars at least once a week.

It's worth noting the importance and fame of Connecticut in the cigar trade. The Connecticut River Valley is home to dozens of farms that produce a variety of tobacco, most prized of which is the Connecticut shade tobacco. There are two kinds of cigar tobacco - shade and broadleaf. Connecticut makes both, and much of the agricultural industry in the area is based around the production of tobacco. In fact, the house I grew up in is located on a former tobacco field, and both my parents worked in the tobacco fields. So it's a big deal around here, and if you look at any cigar catalog or shop, you'll see hundreds of cigars that feature Connecticut tobacco.

Here we are at the Foster farm. That structure is called a tobacco shed, used to hang leaves for drying. Its walls have slats that can be opened. The field is currently full of delicious broadleaf tobacco, to be used in Drew Estate's "Liga Privada T52" cigar wrappers. The field is worth millions of dollars.  

Situated on an open expanse of field, the main event took place here, at a huge tent with tables and a stage. They had music playing, gave out goodie bags stuffed with cigars and swag, had a raffle, and some remarks by Jonathan Drew and Sam Morales. Part of the cost of admission was some special event cigars:

Incentive cigars included:

Liga Privada No. 9	6x52
Liga Privada T52	6x52
Liga Undercrown	6x52
Liga Privada Unico Serie Ratzilla	6x46
Liga Privada Unico Serie A	9.25x47
Nica Rustica El Brujito	6x52
Florida Sun Grown	6x52
Herrera Esteli TAA Exclusive	6x52

     
Notice they tossed in a couple of Drew patches and a Boveda humidification packet. Good move! Check out that Serie A...man, what a cool super-lancero format! They also had a Liga Privada Velvet Rat and a Kentucky Fired Cured Fat Molly, both of which I smoked during the morning hours.

An hour or so into the event, Drew Estate founder and head Jonathan Drew showed up with master blender Willy Herrera. I spoke to Willy briefly, letting him know I visited the tobacco manufactory that his mother-in-law Sandy Cobas owns in Miami (El Titan De Bronce, for those of you following along at home) and then moved on to the throng of people clustering around Jonathan Drew (or JD for short.) He was really friendly and took time to meet everyone who wanted to say hello.

The man himself - Jonathan Drew. What an awesome character!

The event featured four educational stations, each led by a Drew Estate expert who discussed one aspect of the cigarmaking process. Participants were divided into four large groups, and at the sound of airhorn, each group proceeded to one of the stations. My group visited the first station - growing.

Obviously, tobacco is a plant that needs proper conditions to grow. Our guide discussed the different ways to plant and the different conditions that tobacco requires. Of course, changes in these conditions can affect the flavor and appearance of tobacco, and so part of the growing process is careful attention to all the variables - light, temperature, exposure to elements, etc. Different tobacco types require different soil, and we discussed how shade and broadleaf are grown differently.

Tobacco seeds are tiny. Our guide passed around this baggie of them...looks like yard fertilizer.

They grow baby tobacco plants in planters like these. I shall call them "tobacclets."

The second station, just down the hill, was the blending station. Here, Willy Hererra and another blender discussed the techniques and skills behind choosing tobacco to blend.

Willy, in the blue shirt, was discussing how he blends a cigar. Blending cigars is a time-consuming and complicated process. There are hundreds of variants of tobacco fillers, binders, and wrappers, and it's up to masters like Willy to craft a combination of tobaccos that works well. Part of that is isolating flavors to then combine later.  Consistency is key - you can't bring a cigar to market unless you can replicate the same flavor profile crop after crop, year after year. And with growing conditions different from year to year, that can prove difficult.

As an incentive for attending the event, participants were each given a special cigar - a 100% Connecticut broadleaf cigar rolled specifically for this event. It's wrapped in shreds of paper from a Nicaraguan newspaper - cool! This is how Willy tries his blends - rolling a 100% pure cigar of a given tobacco leaf, to get the taste of just that flavor before adding that particular strain to a cigar blend. This way, he knows all of the flavors individually. 

After tucking that broadleaf single into my pocket for later, we proceeded to the third station - harvesting. Farmer John Foster, on whose farm we were standing, discussed the ways he grows his tobacco. It's quite a science - tobacco is planted, protected and cultivated over months and months, and harvested in particular ways - including chopping the tobacco at the base (stalk-cutting) and then letting the leaf wilt in the sun for a while before collecting.

Farmers use a flat-bladed axe to chop the tobacco leaves. The clump of leaves leftover (dried in the below pictures) is also called a "mano." 

Tobacco needs to ferment, and to ferment it needs one thing over all - heat. The fresh leaves, after being stalk-cut or uprooted, need to be dried out and / or fermented before they're ready to be rolled. This process takes place in a huge barn, also known as a shed. The final station was staffed by our man Jonathan Drew himself.

Tobacco leaves are dried in a very particular way. Freshly harvested manos are threaded onto a rig called a lay that's then lifted up into the rafters of a large shed, where they're kept for some time to mature and to dry, sometimes with the aid of fires. For example, the Foster farm dries its tobacco using charcoal fires - they go through 25 tons of charcoal per year. I'm told they use Kingsford brand BBQ briquettes.

Here's Jonathan Drew showing participants a tobacco plant before it is threaded on to a lay.

One step not represented here is rolling, which takes place in Drew Estate's massive facility in Esteli, Nicaragua. That factory produces 135,000 cigars per day. Cigar rollers, called torceador(a)s, roll cigars at a bench using a variety of tools. See a more detailed description of this process from my Miami trip earlier this year. 

And naturally, we capped the day off with some good eats - some fresh beer from Two Roads Brewing Co. and some delicious brisket, beans, cornbread, and mac 'n cheese from Bear's BBQ. This event was a ton of fun, and cool to see up-close how tobacco is grown, dried, and blended. It's well worth the cost, not just for the education but for the cigars alone.