I had the pleasure of sitting down and conversing with the man for a little over an hour one afternoon last week, mano a mano, over a cigar on the plush leather couches of his Miami Cuban Crafters office/store/factory. What an interesting guy. Topics ranged from politics, economics, life, and of course tobacco (he even gave me some tips on my home grown cigar tobacco production, including using proper fertilizer, fermentation temps and so on). The man knows everyone and has been everywhere. He'd even been at a few restaurants in my home town in Tallahassee. Polite and well traveled, extremely modest and an eminently gracious host, he reminded me of the kind of person my grandfather was. Maybe old school is the term? The man basically commutes between Miami and Esteli (Nicaragua) every two weeks. He totally oversees every aspect of the entire Cuban Crafters operation, from seedlings planted in the fileds he owns to the finished cigars he regularly tests for quality control (he was smoking a 1959 Medina, which are rolled right there in the store, as we conversed, for that purpose). I'm not sure how many guys like that there are in the industry, but it can't be many. Apart from my time with "the Don," the store's staff was top notch. (If you go, Andres Montalvo will likely be the guy who greets you, offers you a 1959 Medina to smoke in the store, offer you a tiny cup of fresh made Cuban coffee about 10 times, and tell you all about the cigars in the store's gigantic humidor). And of the 3 or 4 rollers who roll Medinas every day, the thin guy at the front table (I forgot his name) is the only one who speaks English and is quite a character. "I've been rolling cigars for 28 years." I think I heard him say that a couple of times.
If you're ever in Miami, even if it's for a two hour layover at the airport, going to and experiencing the Cuban Crafters store is a must-do. It's maybe 5 or 10 minutes from the airport.
If you're ever in Miami, even if it's for a two hour layover at the airport, going to and experiencing the Cuban Crafters store is a must-do. It's maybe 5 or 10 minutes from the airport.
