vudu9
New Member
That's a tremendous compliment! Here are the differences;
- Pepin uses a 4th fermation process on all of the leaf he procures whereas I don't.
- My cigars are Nicaraguan Puros rolled in Honduras. Pepin will incorporate Habano Ecuador wrapper from the Olivas on many of his creations.
- Pepin will also package his cigars in Cedar boxes. I use a neutral Okeme wood for my packaging. My cigars are built to age upwards of 10 years. If I put them in cedar boxes, over time, the cedar profile would get in the way of the core tobacco notes Nicaragua is really known for. 35-90 days in the drying room is about all the cedar I like in my cigars.
- Pepin blends to the taste profile and bunching/rolling standards of Cuba as he has learned throughout his whole life.
My cigars are bunched by hand and a lieberman apparatus is used to apply the binder (still by hand). The cigar is then hand finished with the capa. Many companies use Libermans i.e. General, Altadis, Davidoff etc. This ensures consistent construction and burn of all product with very, very few issues in the finished cigar. Liebermans have been around since the turn of the 20th century and, were used on roughly 80% of all Cuban cigars that were made for (and owned by) the American market at that time up untill the 1940's-50's or so. My cigars are also draw tested within the acceptable range of PSI.
- I use ligero in my blend. Pepin will use upper tier Viso for the strength in many of his cigars - tratidional with Cuba.
My cigars are blended by myself to re-create the Pre-Sandanista (1979) style of cigars that were coming out of that country at the time - strong, bold and clean. All batch productions are approved and validated by myself before the make it into the retail market - NO ACCEPTIONS.
Hope this helps.
Dion
