While I've neglected my blog I haven't been idle. Yesterday morning I made use of the high relative humidty to roll a cigar. It's a mix of this year's Olor and last year's Glessenor and Piloto Cubano. Last weekend I stung the last of 2024's crop - two plants of Little Dutch and one Glessenor sucker stock. My tobacco patch is right outside the kitchen window, and as the chief dishwasher of the house those three plants were companions through the fall. They're coloring up well in the garage. The week of Thanksgiving I sampled all the tobacco I kilned this summer. I even bought a small corncob pipe to aid in this, no more using extra leaves of finished tobaco to find out the new varieties weren't yet ready, now they'll just be stuffed in the pipe. I was pleasantly surprised that the Dominican Olor was ready by Thanksgiving - it has a richness that I think would enhance a more assertive flavor.
The Texas Cuban even surprised me in the end. I prepared myself to be disappointed from the start with it. The seedlings were runty and established slowly. The two I gave space to in the vegetable beds never amounted to anything - I didn't even attempt to harvest them. The one that grew to full size looked alright. It was exceptionally tall, the long distance between leaf nodes meant the leaf count was low. But then, it went from post harvest stump to full sized, flowering sucker in 28 days. Even so, I told myself that it would have to be some of the best tasting leaf ever to make growing it again worth it.
After sampling the Olor and Cuban - they are distinctly different. The Olor has a richness that seems like it would boost any flavor you paired with it. The Texas Cuban had a flavor that was hard to pin down, but something between nutmeg and ginger. I'll be growing both of these again soon.
