I was paging through a newly arrived catalog of Rolex watches. It had just come in the mail. Being a bit foggy from a poor night's sleep and some subsequent, tedious chores, I flipped the pages, wondering vaguely why all of the watches had a brown wristband. They were stunning medallions, in brilliant colors, and the prices were not as high as I would have supposed.
Brown wristbands? Rolex catalog in the mail? That can't be right. Seriously, it was a fresh catalog from JR Cigar. The prices of even cheap, bundled cigars run the risk of poking your eyes out.
Unless you have a secret, off-shore bank account loaded with millions, you just have to be nuts to buy these things any more. The stubby remnant shown above is WLT T-13 viso wrapped in WLT Habana 2000, and not even a binder. It's as smooth and delicious and firm and enjoyable as any cigar...any cigar you can purchase anywhere. No chaveta, no glue, no mold.
It's no longer a matter of penny pinching to roll your own cigars. Spending a bit of time learning the simple, manual skill of rolling a smokable cigar is saving easily $5 to $10 per cigar! It's crazy how exorbitant the prices of bread and butter cigars have become. No wonder the cigar bands are starting to look like Rolex watches.
A cheap, bamboo cutting board from Walmart, a cigar guillotine cutter (ordinary cigar cutter) and a $1 spray bottle (for water) is absolutely all the investment required. One cigar blend kit from WLT will provide enough wrapper, filler and binder to get just about anybody through the basics of rolling a smokable cigar. Tobacco plus those basic accessories cost about what one cheap, cheap bundle of mediocre cigars would cost.
So why spend your retirement on factory cigars?
Bob
