Factory's and cigar quality
jship079
Posts: 621 ✭
I always here people talk about lets say for instance casino 18 coming from the same factory as davidoff (I believe this is a correct statement) But what does that mean how can just because one cigar is made in a factory make it good other than the rollers what would be the same do they take the left over davidoff tobacco and use it in lesser brands? This is just one example as I hear this statement often.
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Im going off memory and now that i think about it more i think it was on a thread here talking about Legro.
Beer is brewed and bottled in a similar fashion. Many popular micro-brews don't have the bottling facility to meet their own demand so other, larger companies brew and bottle for them. I wouldn't buy a certain beer just because it's brewed and bottled by Shipyard Brewing Company.
What is being discussed here is quality control. That is how you should think about cigars from the same factory. All factories have a varying degree of tobacco. Recall my post a few weeks ago about purchasing and obtaining tobacco and materials. They have some high grade and some low grade and some moderate grade and in that sense, you get what you pay for. What is consistent within a factory is quality control. It would be more costly to a factory to try to employ different levels of QC to different cigars, so there are some blanket things they do which effect all cigars produced at the factory both low end the ultra premium. As a buyer and someone who sources projects at tons of factories I have gotten to see quite a bit so tune in to the below, I think you guys will find it extremely interesting and now that I think about it, this is a topic that I dont think anyone has ever really written about extensively as I dont think the general cigar public would find it interesting but you die hard guys out there are going to love it.
In my job as a buyer, I get calls from factories all the time to come by and visit to do business. Literally tons. I often write about my trips to latin america and a great deal of my time is spent visiting such places. Even in my play by play that I post here for others to read, I dont always discuss every place I go, just the more familiar ones or recounts of interesting events. Anyway, if a factory catches my eye because I know something they have made in the past, their fermentation, their materials, if a friend in the industry recommends them, I will rarely schedule an appointment but more or less just drop by unannounced. This lets you see the factory as it is run on a day by day basis. If you tell them you are coming, they will run a tighter ship than usual while you are there. When I visit, I have a punch list or a type of report card I have crafted over the years and each item on the list gets a grade. there are over one hundred items on my list. based on the results, I leave the factory with a clear idea of what they can offer. For example, a factory of a certain grade may only qualify to make production for me for cheap cigars and for a factory to make something very premium or special, they need to make a different grade. for example, if I smoked a fantastic cigar at a low grade factory, I would not buy them. More in depth, lets say I can get an exceptional cigar but would have to sell it for $10 because of the premium materials. As great as the cigar might be, if the factory has a low QC grade, I know that there is a high probability of construction or consistency problems. i would not sleep well at night if I knew a customer was buying a $10 cigar that may or may not burn or taste the same from cigar to cigar. While my checklist is long and extensive, here are some interesting items I look for. I cant tell you everything as I need some trade secrets, but some of these may be things you havent thought of. Here is a glimpse.
Ratio of rolling pairs to supervisors. More supervisors per pair = better quality.
Do the pairs get their materials from a bank within the factory or from their supervisor? If the roller does not get the right proportions, the supervisor needs to watch the bank rather than cover his own ass.
Is there a limit to the number of cigars a pair can make in a day? Fewer cigars a day means more attention to detail
Are the rollers paid on salary or by the cigar? With a salary they take their time, per cigar, their is an incentive to crank out production and possibly lose site of quality.
Do the bunchers bunch by hand or use a liberman? hand bunching is more romantic but leads to more tight draws and less production.
Do they weigh the production? Great way to see if cigars are over or under filled.
Do they have a draw tester and if so how much of the production is tested? Some factories prefer not to have them, others do. i like them. All factories say they draw test all their cigars. this is not true, you have to know what to look for.
Does the factory fumigate their tobacco? Do they fumigate the cigars during the aging process? Do they freeze their cigars before shipping? If they do, what type of freezer and at what temperature? You dont want bugs!!
What type of lighting do they have in the selection room? What type of bulbs and what wattage? Good sorters need good lighting.
Does the factory buy their tobacco, grow their tobacco, a combination of the two? Growing your own tobacco is great. it cuts costs, allows for some really quality leaf grown the way you want it. But what if the factory has a bad crop. They are going to have to use it. If they buy they can always buy from someone else one year.
Do they ferment their own tobacco? If yes do they batone or do they use plain water?
How much tobacco does the factory have?
How many rollers do they have and how many cigars can the make a day, a month, a year?
Is there room to expand?
How is the government in the country the factory is located? are there massive minimum wage increases planned that will lead to huge price increases to me and my customers over a short period?
What about tobacco sortation? How are the hundreds of sorters trained? Imagine a sorter does not know the difference between a seco and a ligero because the training program sucks. The tobacco comes from the supplier or farm and they start sorting. The person classifies a ligero as a seco and now it is bailed that way. It is given to the roller as a seco for a blend that calls for a seco leaf but it is ligero. Now that cigar wont taste like the rest. (FYI, this little fact makes a huge difference and is one thing that a lot of people dont look closely enough at).
What is the male to female ration in selection and sorting? Women have a better eye for detail.
If they grow their own tobacco, do they have engineers? Do they do soil analysis and if so, who does it? If they are not giving nutrients back to the earth, dont count on getting good tobacco in a few years.
Are the rollers hired from the outside or does the factory have a rolling school? Training your own people means they will be able nail the bunching just the way the blender intends.
This is a little taste but you get the idea. Our company even takes certain humanitarian elements into account. Many of the cigar making countries are very poor and it is important to look at what a factory gives back to its employees and the community. Does the factory have medical services available? One year we were working with 5 factories in one town who did not offer the services. Each claimed they could not afford a full time doctor but we brought them together to all share one. Mondays at one place, Tuesdays another. Now we almost insist on this when we work with factories. Some factories offer extra job training, scholorships, etc. One factory I work with who grows a ton of tobacco will plant food on the empty plots and then sell the food at cost to their employees saving them a lot of money vs what the employees would pay at the market.
I hope this helps shed some light. A cigar made with inexpensive tobaccos at a top notch factory means a lot. It means consistency and a cigar you feel comfortable you can hang your hat on. Who would have thought that the $2 M1 by Cusano you get in a bundle goes through the same QC as the Davidoff Anniversario? One thing I hope you guys take away from this though is the fact that where you buy your cigars from really matters. When you buy from us, you are getting our seal of approval. When I roll out something and say, this cigar is every bit as good as a $10 cigar but we are selling them for $3, you can take that to the bank. I looked at what goes in it, who makes it and where it is made. many times I find great deals on top notch tobacco at amazing factories where there is simply a surplus of great cigars to be had cheap. This is not limited to just brands we may make or closeouts we pick up to pass on to you guys but also national brands. Many times when I visit a factory, I will actually ask to purchase only certain parts of the production I know were made by certain rollers or made on a certain day or shipped on a certain day. We are meticulous. If I know it has been wet and humid on certain dates, we will not buy production from those dates because more than likely the cigars will have quality issues. Bottom line, you are not going to get his kind of "lunacy" anywhere else. I often read posts out there of people comparing the quality of B and M cigars to mail order (same brands, same cigars) and making all kinds of assumptions. The truth is, you are not going to get better cigars from anyone else I promise. We live at these factories, we obsesses over getting the best of everything and dont simply just place orders and take what the maker sends us. We are selective. And when it comes to storage, no one can touch us. When you have to look after 25 million cigars at any given time, that is a ton of money in inventory. You better believe everything from temperature to humidity is watched like a hawk. If your local shop looses his inventory, it may cost him $20K, if we loose ours, it is millions of dollars.
Wow, I think I may be the first guy in history to actually hijack his own rant within his own rant now having reread that last paragraph. Sorry, I just love talking about this stuff and there are so many things we do behind the scenes at Cigar.com that so many people dont realize, I just cant wait to take the opportunity to explain!!
a friend of mine who has been there and to Davidoff claims that the DPG factory is better than davidoff.
any thoughts on the comparison?
is this one of those situations where personal taste is conflicting?
i hope to some day visit Davidoff.
Awesome info in this thread btw.
It is amazing to hear about the side of business that we don't see.
I was wondering how many cigar companies own their own factories vs shopping out the assembly? What would be the benefit to doing so vs creating your recipes and then shopping it out to a factory? It seems like there are some very old companies and some very young companies who own their own factories (Fuente and DPG come to mind here) while there are also some very old and some very young companies who shop it out to a facotry (Davidoff and Rocky Patel come to mind here). So I guess I wanted to know why a cigar company would want to own a factory or not? And who?
Its probably just different lines of thinking, but I was just curious.
Also on a side not, Alex, good for you for insisting on ethical business practices with the factories.
I was really surprised to see this I would of thought the old way would be the preferred.
Also man you aint playen alex your like the soup dude from sindfield only in the cigar industry I can see you now NO CASH FOR YOU!! NO CASH FOR YOU!!
pretty wild when you think about how much work goes in to this.
AJ Fernandez/ San Lotano
My Father Cigars (Pepin)
Padron
Fuente
Davidoff
Camacho (owned by Davidoff but they have a separate vertical business
General
Altadis
Oliva
Perdomo
Gran Habano