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Si’Kar – The history of the cigar.
By Huw Lewis

Following a boom in recent years, the cigar as style accessory has enjoyed a renaissance of popularity not seen since Churchill’s glory days. The flighty denizens of Hollywood may have long moved on to Kabbalah and 5 card stud, but the ranks of diehard cigar fans continue to swell year after year. Luckily, Mexico is one of the worlds’ great producers of Tobacco, and here in Zihua we can enjoy both homegrown and the best of several Latin American varieties.

Tobacco has been around for a very long time. Its’ first recorded use was found on Guatemalan pottery shards dating from 600AD, but it is known to have been in use for much longer; indeed evidence of carbonized tobacco seeds have been found in North American archaeological sites which date from 550 b.c. Tobacco has also long been used as a medicinal plant, put to such common use as a scourge and anti-parasitical, and in a more social sense to ward off hunger and thirst during ball-games, fertility rites, and even war. Mexican pre-Columbian friezes have been found which show Tezcatlipoca, God of Gods, smoking a large one. The Mayan figure depicted on the original pottery was smoking a twist of tobacco much like the first stage of manufacture of the cigars of today, and indeed the word cigar is believed by many to have its roots in the Mayan verb “Si’Kar”, to smoke. It was not until the Spanish conquest of Latin America that the cigar began to resemble the modern long cylinder – taken to the Old World as an example of the first contact with Mesoamerican cultures by the conquistadors who, on landing in Cuba, were amazed to see natives with smoke billowing out from their mouths. The basic tobacco twist was taken and refined to the shape it has now by the inhabitants of the Canary Isles, who had strong trade links with Cuba. The famous ring was developed to show the provenance of the tobacco, and under which royal house the tobacco had been grown.

The main tobacco producing countries today include Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras. Although Cuba is justifiably the most famous of these in terms of cigar production, Mexico isn’t too far behind in quality. The main growing area of Mexico is in San Andres Tuxtla, Veracruz, where climate and geography conspire to make growing conditions perfect. Many cigar producers source their leaves here, including Zihuatanejo’s own Valle de la Iguana brand. Tobacco is one of Mexico’s ‘big three’ exports: Gas, Tequila and Tobacco. Mexican tobacco, when it is not wasted in cigarettes, is regarded as subtle and flavorsome, not as strong as its Cuban counterpart but just as tasty.

Ruben Hernandez, originally from San Andres Tuxtla, currently living in Zihua and resident cigar maker for Valle de la Iguana based at Casa Tequila, Calle Cuauhtemoc, has 34 years of experience and kindly took ADIP through the stages of making a cigar. From seed to cigar, tobacco takes about 3 to 4 years. The leaves are hung, dried, drained, sunned and de-veined to name but a few of the 250 or so processes that go into the manufacture of a cigar. The processes are entirely natural, making cigars one of the more acceptable faces of Tobacco. On the street outside Casa Tequila, Ruben makes premium quality cigars using tobacco sourced in Mexico and Cuba, a fascinating process well worth a look. He carefully selects and de-veins the filler and binder leaves, rolls them into a cigar shape using natural Tragacanth gum to bind the outer leaves in a cigar shape, before the whole lot is transferred into a press to ‘form’ the cigar. Next, a half tobacco leaf is used as the ‘wrapper’, which will give the cigar its characteristic look . Ruben prefers to use Cuban leaves as his wrapper, which give it a beautiful dark golden brown color. Between 5 and 6 thousand Valle de la Iguana cigars made by Ruben are sold per year, making them an important export of Zihuatanejo. The cigars are kept fresh in a ‘humidor’, where a constant 65 to 70 percent humidity and a temperature of 22 degrees centigrade ensure the cigars do not dry out or rot.

Another location near to Zihuatanejo is worth a look; El Chole, a few miles south of Zihua has been a tobacco producing area for centuries. Villagers hand roll “puros” as they have done since the era of the nearby Soledad de Maciel pre-Columbian ruins. Although not as refined a smoke as a Cohiba or Valle de la Iguana, they’re well worth a try on a day out. To warp the words of Mark Twain; “if there are no cigars in Paradise, I shall not go.”

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