Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending my second Drew Estate Pennsylvania Barnsmoker, and I think it was my favorite Barnsmoker so far. For those unfamiliar, the Drew Estate Barnsmoker events are educational parties that Drew estate has in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Florida and Louisiana, all highlighting tobacco processing unique to those areas, on the farms that are actually doing those processes. In Pennsylvania it was held on a farm in Strasburg, Lancaster County, which grows some broadleaf tobacco which they sell to Lancaster Leaf, which sells to Drew Estate, as well as other cigar companies, AJ Fernandez comes to mind. It’s my personal belief that Connecticut Broadleaf grown in Pennsylvania will gain popularity in the near future as the farms in the Connecticut river valley shrink and sell out to development. This is only my own speculation, but I’m pretty sure the Amish and Mennonite farmers in Lancaster County aren’t selling their family farms any time soon. I digress. The Barnsmoker is a great way to learn about all of the work that goes into the making of premium cigars in one day. It’s the Cliff Notes version of Cigar Safari, which is a crash course into the process in itself.
After an opening ceremony, for want of a better word, where Jonathan Drew introduces the Drew Estate staff talks about the company and the events of the day, the several hundred attendees are broken up into three groups, and m
oved through three stations. My group’s first station was the field. This farm has about 8 acres of black tobacco planted, and it’s about two weeks away from harvest. They were kind enough to demonstrate how they moved through the rows, by hand, with angled loppers, stalk cutting each plant the base, whale another worker laid out four foot sticks, which they would then come along and skewer the plants on to hang on trailers to take to the barn. Pedro Gomez and Don Welk, who owns the farm, were heading up this station. Our next stop was inside a barn, where Willie Herrera and Henry Pineda and a gentleman from Yuengling brewery (Jinling to Pedro!), like last year, talked about cigar blending and the comparison to beer making. I zoned out on this a little, and enjoyed the relative cool of the barn, and had the great pleasure of meeting some fellow attendees whom I had previously only known through Facebook, notably Angelo, who has the Jersey Cigar Lounge Facebook Group. The final stop was the curing barn, where Jonathan and Mrs. Welk talked about hanging the tobacco, then we ventured to the basement where Jonathan and Fritz Bossert, from Universal Leaf (whom JD referred to often as his mentor, and has a long history in the industry with General Cigar, etc.) talked about the unique way they finish curing the leaf in PA before shipping it off for further processing. The basement was musty and crowded and stretched the limits of my claustrophobia and I admit to spending as much time making sure I had a good escape route, and clinging to a block pillar as listening to the presentation. It was one of the few instances in a cigar rel
ated presentation when I was pleased when it concluded.
This Barnsmoker differed from the past two I attended in the way the cigars were distributed. The way it works overall is that you buy your admission ticket for $100, and when you check in, you “buy” your cigars for $10. This gets around the FDA no free cigars business, so you’re buying your cigars. Past events I’ve gotten 10 cigars that were easily worth $110 retail, so you’re really getting the event for free. This time was a little different. At check in we received a backpack with a cutter, lighter, stickers, cap, su
nglasses, five or six cigars including a Liga A, Feral Flying Pig, FSG, Undercrown Sungrown, and two vitolas of the BOTL cigars, and a tin of Undercrown Sungrown Coronettes (I should have paid better attention, but I think that’s right). There was also a coupon book to visit various stations throughout the day to get a Herrera Esteli Brazil, an Undercrown Maduro, an Acid Kuba Maduro (I was rather hoping for an Acid 20), Tabak Especial, and a Ventura Axis Mundi. To my great delight, my dear friend Michal Giannini was there, and hosted a cigar rolling event, where were able to do our best at passing wrappers on cigars, which was great fun.
The highlight of these events is always the people. One of the things that made this one special for me, and most enjoyable, was getting to share the day with Kevin and Jessica from Florida. Of course, we should know them from CigarProp fame. I was hoping to intercept them on their drive in, but I found out their directions were taking them within feet of my house, so I mooched a lift, and we spend some extra time together. Afterwards Kevin and I did a video which I’ll share here when he posts it. Let me warn you, it starts off with him saying a lot of foolish lies, which I lacked the common sense to dispute then and there, but I’ve gotten tired of arguing that point with him! Stay tuned to the CigarProp Youtube channel for video from the Barnsmoker. There were many folks there I knew, of course, several of my local shop managers and owners were there, and I defiantly made some new friends.
I’m sure I’m forgetting something, it was a hot day, maybe the hottest so far this summer. To me that didn’t take away from the enjoyment. I think that beats rain, and it certainly is better than cold. Ah! I shouldn’t forget the food! The food was great! Perhaps the heat lessened my appetite, but they had plenty of water on hand, of which I partook freely, and there was libations option for those who wanted it. The barbecue was excellent, the coleslaw was refreshing, the mac and cheese was delicious and they had a roast pig that I understand was really tasty. I saw Willie Herrera elbows deep in some, so it must have been good. As I said at the beginning, this was the most enjoyable Barnsmoker I’ve attended, and it may be the best large event I’ve been to. It certainly ran on DE time, but the DE clocks are getting a little closer to being on real time. If you get a chance to go to a Barnsmoker, I recommend it highly.
That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
