What a day!

Here’s a quick blow-by-blow. Videos will start to follow when I get a chance to edit them over the next couple of weeks.

After a terrific breakfast that included “gallo pinto” (“speckled rooster”), the unofficial national dish of Nicaragua, which is basically rice and pinto beans, fried separately then mixed together, we jumped on the bus and headed to the Perdomo factory.

We got a quick tour of the rolling rooms and the rooms where the finished cigars are aged up to 15 years. It was in the ageing room that we got our first experience of breathing ammonia. OMG. I nearly died within seconds. That’s the stuff you DON’T want in your cigars, and a premium cigar will have been aged long enough to remove most of it. Billy Perdomo, brother of Nick Perdomo Jr who is the President and Founder of the company and the guy who is being kind enough to be our tour guide, pulled out some very special cigars for us to try – the Estate Selection 2005 Royal. Very smooth.

Then Billy walked us out to the seedling sheds around the back where we saw the machine that allows them to plant one single seed at a time in seedling trays. Tobacco seeds are the size of ground pepper or ground coffee. Nick told us the other day that you can fit 10,000 of them into a bottel cap. So imagine trying to get ONE into a seedling container. Well they have an amazing machine that does that and we were shown how it works by one of the workers. Then we saw seedlings of various ages in these long tents (each one about about a football field long).

Then we jumped back on the bus for the 5 minute drive to the Esteli farms. Perdomo have several farms around Nicaragua and these are the closest to the factory.

This is where the seedlings go when they are about 20 days old.

We saw lots of various ages, young plants, mature plants, plants that have already been harvested a few times, and plants that have finished being harvested and are waiting to be plowed back into the ground. The ground is plowed, by the way, by oxen.

After the farms, we had lunch and then back to the factory for a tour lead by Aristides Garcia, Perdomo’s master cigar maker. Aristides has been in the cigar game for over 65 years, most of which he spent as the #1 guy for Cuba Tobacco. He’s 77 years young, works like a maniac, and told us that he’s been smoking 20 cigars a day – since he was 14. He’s never had a day off work and can’t remember the last time he was sick. Aristides showed us the entire production flow from immediately after the leaves are harvested, through the various stages of drying, sorting and ageing. He went into heaps of detail about each step of the process, showing us the care that Perdomo takes to make sure their cigars are the best in the world. I grabbed all of this on video and it’s fantastic stuff. Once you’ve heard Aristides tell his story (well, he told it in Spanish, but Billy translated), you’ll better understand why Perdomo cigars are so superior to most of the cigars on the market.

Finally, we headed back to Hotel La Campina for dinner, rum and cigars.

Tomorrow’s agenda – the rolling factory, the box factory, and then dominos with Uncle Tony.

Vincent, Aristides, Billy, Jason

(Check out more photos on our Facebook page.)

Jason and I arrived in Nicaragua yesterday! We flew from Miami International Airport (which, by the way, has to be THE. WORST. AIRPORT. IN. THE. WORLD.) with Hillman, Vincent and Bill from Perdomo Asia, as well as Billy Perdomo and a few guys from the US and Poland, arriving in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, a couple of hours later. Compared to Miami, Managua airport was a breeze. Most of the guys hit the liquor stores, where you can buy 12 year-old Flor De Cana rum (a local Nicaraguan product which is “the world’s most awarded rum”) for about $20, and stocked up for the trip.

We had a bus waiting for us at the airport and started the three hour trip to Esteli, the home of Perdomo Cigars’ manufacturing facilities.

As soon as we jumped on the bus, Billy handed out cigars and Nicaraguan beer (Tona, a very good drop).

Cameron on the bus to Esteli

The three hour trip to Esteli was fascinating. As far as the landscape goes, Nicaragua looks incredibly like Australia. I half expected to see a few roos jumping around. The main differences I noticed were:

a) we don’t have vultures back home and

b) we don’t have people living in tiny corrogated iron shacks in the dirt.

Although, I supposed if you go to certain parts of WA and the NT, you might see something similar.

c) more mountains.

A few stats about Nicaragua:

Population – about 6 million, the lowest population density in Central America. Possibly because so many people died during the revolutionary and Contra wars in the 70s and 80s.

Unemployment – 46%. It is the second poorest country in the Americas. 48% of the population in Nicaragua live below the poverty line, 79.9% of the population live with less than $2 per day. According to UN figures, 80% of the indigenous people (who make up 5% of the population) live on less than $1 per day. According to the FAO, 27% of all Nicaraguans are suffering from undernourishment; the highest percentage in Central America.

Religion – 95% Catholic. Under the influence of the Catholics, the govt introduced a 100% ban on abortion last year, which leads to horrifying situations like this.

Culture – Nicaragua is a country that takes poetry SERIOUSLY. Ruben Dario is considered a national hero.

Jason on the bus to Esteli

So the people here are very poor, very religious and had to fight tooth-and-nail to win the right of self-government, after first being colonized by the Spanish for centuries, then the USA, then for almost half of the 20th century the country was run by the brutal Somoza family dictatorship, then when the revolution kicked the last Somoza out, the USA under Reagan illegally funded the Contras (a counter-revolutionary militia) to try to overthrow the new government (which was unsuccessful and lead to the infamous Iran – Contra scandal with Oliver North) and put Nicaragua under an economic embargo for five years.

So they’ve been doing it tough for a long, long time.

Nicaragua has always been a predominantly agricultural country and they are well known for their rum, coffee, lobsters, beef and, of course, CIGARS. Not just Perdomo – there are a range of cigar manufacturers based here in Esteli, because of the soil and climate.

When we arrived in Esteli, about 5pm, we took a quick visit to the Perdomo factory, which was closed because it’s a Sunday (and everyone’s in church).

Perdomo Cigars factory in Esteli

Today we’ll be heading back to the factory to witness the entire Perdomo operation. Perdomo has vertically integrated the entire process – from growing their own crops, to making their own boxes, to, of course, drying, rolling and ageing their cigars.

I’m going to be shooting lots of video for the PerdomoVision podcast.

(BTW you can see more photos on our Facebook page.)