Recent content by Johnny-O!

Lizard Gizmo did a list at Friends of Habanos in the Watering Hole forum. This is a post 2003 list, Alex Groom might have posted the pre-2003 list in his Cuban Cigar Website (NIVEL ACUSO and all). John

Alex Groom said there was nothing but white pages. Looked in Amazon and they have the MRN 2003 and 2005 books available, some want as much as $3000. John

In your images the books have all white pages, there was never anything ever printed. If it did it would be considered a 3rd edition. Initially MRN wanted 5,000 Euros up front for anyone that wanted the books and as time went on I think that moved towards 10,000 Euros. Also, you could not buy it...

MRN had a 1st edition 2003 and 2nd 2005. Groom's blue book was the 1st edition and was only available to those who funded his project months or maybe even a year in advance. It was never on sale to the general public. The second edition (Red Book) covers an additional collection of cigars...

Brandon...My last conversation with Alex he said he will not be doing any more editions as MRN did. My guess is that to put this altogether is too time consuming and possibly overwhelming. I think they only printed 3000 copies. There were several versions, a blue book and a red book and one...

Alex Groom was a friend of MRN, his work on this book is 2005/2006 to present date. Helios is the printer. He also runs Cuban Cigar Website which has a lot of information on past and present Cuban cigars. John

Get Alex Grooms book, you wont miss a beat. He picks up where MRN left off. It's even bigger and heavier for a fraction of MRN. I took these down to Havana in my carry on bags for Mr Groom for the Festival coming up next week. It was like lugging around 5 car batteries, don't ask me how I did...

Hamlet, the former LCDH roller and now Fabrica5 mastermind says that they used some derivative of pine tree sap from Canada when he rolled in Cuba. This falls in line with the CMC. John

Gluten Free party at MX's house!

Ran across some funny things while looking up Sure Gel. In some baking/canning forum there was a lady that said she used Fruit Pectin that was 35 years old and her recipe turned out fine. I guess that's because when they didn't put expiration dates on anything it didn't expire! John

I use Sure Jell from Kraft Foods to repair cigars. It is stated they do not put Gluten in their Fruit Pectin. However, they also say that they dont classify it as "Gluten Free" because some of the ingredients they bought from suppliers are not required by law to list all of their ingredients. John

My "LC" roller uses CMC or Carboxymethyl Cellulose gum. It has a lot of industrial/commercial uses so there may be several versions. Wiki has a lengthy write up on it but nothing dedicated to the cigar business. It does state that its major source is softwood pulp or cotton linter so it does not...

If there is any price reduction in the cigars it will start with the lesser known brands/vitolas, machine made and smaller cigars. Common brah, $6 for Jose L Piedras? They will however keep coming up with fancy packaging/regional/limited editions that are just regular production cigars that are...

You can get a hand held scale at Walmart/Amazon for suitcases $12-$15. They have digital ounces and pounds and seem to be somewhat accurate. If your weight is anywhere near the next pound quote the shipping for the next pound. There are always slight differences with the scales at the PO. John