Re-Wrap -- the new Spork
Hot doggy a new project in the cross hairs!
Puttering round on another forum, I bumped into a fascinating thread whereby guy swaps wrappers. Takes the wrapper off two cigars and wraps each one on the other. I thought this an intriguing idea, in the inventive tradition of the spork. But I think I can go one better.
Early this last summer, you may recall, I experimented with rolling my own, so I have the tools, and applying the wrapper is no big deal. The tricky part, I think, would be trying to remove the old wrapper intact. He advises wetting the wrapper you want to remove. Bad idea. Too much wet made my home rolled sticks start to ferment. Too easy to tear up what you're peeling. Even if you got the old off intact, fitting it exactly to the other cigar without having any extra to cut off would be a chore. And what do you cut a new cap from?
No. This would be so much easier if you simply used NEW wrapper leaf. Either apply the new wrapper over the old, or else peel off the old and apply new.
So now we come to the question: If you wanted to experiment with a cheap stick which you thought had decent filler potential but could stand a splash of flavor, what would you wrap round what? For example, I could see taking a bundle of Perdomo Fresco and twirling a dark and salty Brazilian wrapper in place of the Connecticut. Or else I could see taking a box of those FX Smith machine rolled naturals that come fifty to a box for 34 bucks and wrapping them with a cameroon right over top of the splotchy Pennsylvania wrap..
What might tickle your imagination?
Puttering round on another forum, I bumped into a fascinating thread whereby guy swaps wrappers. Takes the wrapper off two cigars and wraps each one on the other. I thought this an intriguing idea, in the inventive tradition of the spork. But I think I can go one better.
Early this last summer, you may recall, I experimented with rolling my own, so I have the tools, and applying the wrapper is no big deal. The tricky part, I think, would be trying to remove the old wrapper intact. He advises wetting the wrapper you want to remove. Bad idea. Too much wet made my home rolled sticks start to ferment. Too easy to tear up what you're peeling. Even if you got the old off intact, fitting it exactly to the other cigar without having any extra to cut off would be a chore. And what do you cut a new cap from?
No. This would be so much easier if you simply used NEW wrapper leaf. Either apply the new wrapper over the old, or else peel off the old and apply new.
So now we come to the question: If you wanted to experiment with a cheap stick which you thought had decent filler potential but could stand a splash of flavor, what would you wrap round what? For example, I could see taking a bundle of Perdomo Fresco and twirling a dark and salty Brazilian wrapper in place of the Connecticut. Or else I could see taking a box of those FX Smith machine rolled naturals that come fifty to a box for 34 bucks and wrapping them with a cameroon right over top of the splotchy Pennsylvania wrap..
What might tickle your imagination?
“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)
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Anyhow, I'm thinking it might also be interesting to go the other way. Take a more full flavored cigar and swap the wrapper out for something more mild. You might get a really flavorful lighter smoke, or at the very least you might get to taste the filler and binder better which would be interesting by itself. I don't know if you have any connie wrappers on hand, but it might be cool.
I also wrapped a Smithdale Breva from FX Smith. Dark little flavorful thing.
We'll soon know.
You gotta admit the sporked unit sure looks a whole lot smoother and all than the FX Smith. It also looks better than the ones I rolled from Dominican seco and ligero with this same wrapper. I have rolled up twenty new sticks from this batch. I don't have a mold, and it shows. Here's a close-up of one of today's sticks:
(You can tell I'm really into this neat picture cropping app on my cell phone where you can crop and oval or a circle out of a pic.) I get good consistent diameter and consistency and roundness, a bit loose, but I am zeroing in.And I'm getting acceptable wrapper seams, which took a learning curve. But there's still a knobby effect without a mold. The spork doesn't have that prob. Starting with a machine rolled avoids the cheroot effect. Some of the stiff PA broadleaf veins of the FX Smith still do lump through though. The mottling on that wrapper disappears with time -- that appears to be a result of the fact you have to spritz the wrapper to stretch the puckers out of it. It dries out and looks better in a few.
As for how they smoke, well, there is not the least doubt it's a smoother more compact smoke, a better burn, and a mellower flavor. Still that PA barn odor, that broadleaf flavor, and all. But way thicker smoke. I think that sporking seals up leaks in the broadleaf is my sense of it.
But the bezuke wrapper which I sporked them with only seems to add some mellow. I think I need something to add spice. Maybe a tangy criollo binder and then a habano wrapper.
The knobbly cheroot in the lower picture, I've already sparked one out of the previous batch I did last weekend. It wasn't bad, either. Truthfully, it tasted in the same flavor direction as an AJ Fresh Rolled, just milder. I know that because after firing one the other day I fired an AJ to compare. Even fresh, these cheroots taste smooth and mellow. Very smokable, unlike the awful taint I rolled up last summer.
Experiments continue. My friend will grow me some habano wrap from Goldy's seeds I snitched out of Rain's pass. I'll try them out next Fall. In the meantime, I might get ambitious and buy some other kinds of leaf from wholeleaftobacco where I scored these latest makings and give it a go.
Tell you right now: rolling cigars is as intoxicating as smoking one. In fact, who was it here said smoking a stogie makes him want to poop? I don't work up the urge smoking a stick, but after rolling for about an hour I sure do need to go drop a deuce. Thing is, you have that tobacco aroma all over your hands and in the room. Just pulling a couple ligero leaves out of their bag and spreading them out... Yum. Not that any of this will replace a fine cigar made with love and skill from choice tobaccos. It's just another worthwhile way to enjoy a cigar.
Takes me twenty minutes to roll each cigar.