Views from a Smoke-Filled Room

LOS ANGELES - Somewhere, sometime the legend started that Cuban women rolled cigars on their thighs.

Some versions of the story had only virgins rolling the cigars.

Both are obviously untrue, but all legends have a grain of truth in them, so what is the basis from which the legend developed?

Visitors to cigar factories in Cuba, the Dominican Republic or other cigar-making countries find the answer in the prep rooms where tobacco leaves are brought in from more than a year of aging to be readied for use in making cigars.

During the recent ProCigar Festival in Santiago, the cigar-making capital of the Dominican Republic, attendees were treated to a thorough tour of four of the major cigar-making facilities in the world: General Cigar Dominicana, home of Macanudo; MATASA, home of Fonseca; La Aurora, producer of La Aurora and Leon Jimenes; and the Tabadom complex, where Davidoff, Avo and other high-profile brands are produced. And by the end of the tours, the jumping-off point of the legend was obvious.

During the leaf preparation program, the full tobacco leaves have to be separated into two half-leaves by removing the stem. Then the leaves have to be sized and sorted for use. Both of these activities could have given rise to the cigar-rolling legend, as women are involved in both.

In the Dominican factories, stemming is now done mostly by machine, but in Cuba, it's still mostly done by hand, with the women removing the stem, then placing and smoothing the half-leaves in piles on the upper part of each leg.

However, in both countries, the sorting is done by hand, usually by women, who sometimes place piles of leaves - by size - on their thighs, as well as on a table or countertop. It is this part of the process which apparently gave rise to the legend.

According to the late South African cigar expert Theo Rudman, the idea is "a legend that has persisted since the mid-'40s, when a visiting journalist saw tobacco leaves being sorted and graded by women who placed the respective piles on their laps." The resulting story about Havanas being rolled on the thighs of virgins has stayed in the imaginations of cigar smokers ever since.

In fact, both bunching and rolling are done at a desk, with the bunchers constructing the interior of the cigar in their hands and placing it in a mold, where it is pressed into shape. The rolling of the wrappers could not possibly be done on any part of the body, since a hard, flat surface is needed for a tight fit of the exterior leaf. Besides, no one other than a surgeon should have a sharp knife like a chaveta anywhere near someone's stomach, legs, thighs or anywhere else where it could cause damage.

Photographs by Rich Perelman.

(Rich Perelman is editor-in-chief of CigarCyclopedia.com, offering comprehensive daily coverage of cigars, accessories, issues, people and prices at www.CigarCyclopedia.com.)

Rich Perelman

3/24/08

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