For The Love of Fire-Cured Tobaccos
Since the announcement a few years ago that Drew Estates would launch a cigar called the Kentucky Fire Cured MUWAT I have been fascinated by the very polarizing flavor of fire cured tobacco. While many have said fire-cured cigars are a love them or hate them flavor I have become quite passionate about this unique style of tobacco. This is a short introduction to the age-old process of fire-curing and the premium cigars that use some type of fire-cured tobacco in their blends.
What is Fire-Cured Tobacco?
Fire curing is a process for curing dark fire tobacco primarily found in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, in fact 4 counties in these states produce 50% all fire-cured tobacco. It is a time-honored process that requires much more work than other curing methods, like air, sun or flue curing. Fire curing produces a tobacco low in sugar and high in nicotine, which has historically been reserved for pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, and snuff. This curing method creates tobacco that contains a higher level of humidity than other types of curing which leads to combustion issues necessitating the need for higher burning fillers thereby limiting its use as a cigars tobacco, until now.
Latakia is an oriental tobacco leaf that is also fire-cured. The curing process for latakia is similar to dark fired, but local hardwoods and aromatic shrubs from Syria and Cyprus are used to add a strong smoke flavor to the tobacco. Latakia is best known for being used in aromatic blends of pipe tobacco.
The process of Fire Curing
The process of fire curing tobacco is a dirty and highly laborious job, one that few farmers and workers want to take on. Today only a few farmers remain that cure tobacco in this manner and most rely on migrant workers to grow, cultivate and help cure the crop. Additionally, this manner of curing is still more art than science requiring the farmer to understand many variables like weather, barn characteristics, condition of the tobacco, fire temperature and how long to expose the tobacco to fire, etc.
Like most tobacco, the plants are cut from the field and hung up to air dry for a short period of time usually until the leaves start to turn yellow in color.
Firing to Yellow
Fires are set on the floor of the barn at a low temperature of approximately 100 degrees. The farmer uses a mixture numerous hardwood slabs covered over by saw dust to keep the fire smoldering for days below the hanging tobacco. The goal during this phase of the process is a low fire temp; the farmer can use ventilators above and below the barn to augment the temp in the barn. Once all of the leaves have turned yellow, the next step to set the color of the leaves.
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...scayfyc4y.jpeg
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...sp4s9j9gj.jpeg
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...sdmx0tu5g.jpeg
Firing to Set Color
Next the fire temperature is increased to 115 degrees to set the color of the tobacco. During this process the tobacco will change from a yellow to a cocoa brown color and may require 1-4 more firings until the leaves turn a rich brown and are dry about half-way up the leaves.
Fire for Drying
After letting the tobacco come into “order” (a term used to describe the proper moisture content of the leaves) another fire is started with a temp of 130 degrees where it will stay until the stems and stalks are darkened and the leaves are brittle to the touch.
Fire for Finishing
Finally the temperature is reduced to 115-120 degrees to finish the leaf. Here the farmer will remove most of the slabs and just use sawdust for maximum smoke and may wet the walls of the barn and the sawdust to bring the leaves into order to allow them to finish properly. This process can require 1-3 fires and can require 10-17 days to complete.
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...psgriu0hz4.jpg
Total time from first fire to packaging for sale can be anywhere from 3 weeks to 10 weeks with 4-10 different fires required to reach the perfect finished product. At this point the tobacco is taken down stripped from the stalk and packaged up for sale where it will go to manufacturer.
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...psnh7hjtsm.jpg
Current Production Premium Fire Cured Smokes
Leccia Black: Sam Leccia (Les- SEE-Ya) created his fire-cured stick by using filler tobacco from Nicaragua, the Dominican and Brazil. He then uses a small amount of fire-cured tobacco from Kentucky and Tennessee all covered in a Habano wrapper. This mixture provides a very balanced mellow cigar with just a touch of smoky, peaty whiskey flavor. This Leccia Black is an excellent intro cigar into the fire-cured realm as it has by far the least smoky flavor of all the current offerings. I have found Leccia’s are best ROTT and start to lose their smoky character over time. Because this stick does not have a pronounced smoke flavor this is the only one I would consider storing with your regular sticks, but I would suggest leaving the cello on. It will be interesting to see how this brand fares now that it has been sold to one of the large houses.
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...psxavwtund.jpg
George A. Rico STK: Rico, of Gran Habano fame, created his fire cured cigar by using only American grown tobaccos in his blend. The wrapper and the binder are both Connecticut Habano with fire cured and other American grown fillers. The STK has a powerful smoky aroma, but the smoke flavors were less pronounced than the aroma would lead you to believe. I would say the smoky flavor falls between the KFC and the Leccia. The STK may have been the most complex of the all the fire-cured offerings. Flavors in this stick include hickory, vanilla spice, toast, and damp tobacco with a bit of smoky white pepper on the finish. While the STK had the lightest pack of all the sticks it has an ash that can hold on all the way to the nub. The STK seems to have gotten lost amongst all the other offerings, perhaps because many Gran Habanos are hit or miss, but it’s a must try if you find you want to indulge in this genre.
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...psxt2nckmp.jpg
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...pszrnluj0p.jpg
KFC MUWAT: Drew Estates takes a unique approach to the development of the KFC by using two wrappers over Nicaraguan fillers from Jalapa and Esteli. They first surround the binder/filler with a San Andreas wrapper to assist with combustion and then overlay that with a fire-cured wrapper. I tried the Chunky and Just A Friend sizes when they first came out and thought the pepper found in the regular MUWATs was fighting with the smoke flavors and I came away very disappointed. I’ve since tried the Kyotos, which is a small panatela and loved it. The hickory barbecue flavors intermingle with vanilla liqueur and some white pepper in the smaller vitola creating a harmonious blend, suggesting that the removal of all that filler really allows the smoky wrapper to shine through in this size. I have yet to try the new Delfinas, but look forward to picking a few of those up and seeing how they compare to the Kyotos.
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...psunywnlax.png
Spectre: Boy wonder AJ Fernandez created the Spectre to compete with the other available offerings, but unlike the other manufacturers he has been very secretive about its construction. It is widely believed that the tobacco responsible for the fire-cured flavor is actually Latakia, which is commonly used as a pipe tobacco. Of the four blends available the Spectre is by far the smokiest with a strong barbecued meat flavor similar to what is found in Liquid Smoke. It makes perfect sense that the Spectre would offer the smokiest flavor since Latakia is significantly stronger than regular fire-cured tobacco. Additional flavors noted in this cigar were leather, spice, mesquite and the aroma of the foot smoke was more pipe like than that of a cigar. The unknown wrapper on the Spectre is incredibly thick resembling that of the Connecticut broadleaf that leads to a dense white ash. The Spectre is a great cigar ROTT or with a bit of rest on them. I’ve smoked 1.5 year old sticks that taste as good as they day I bought them. At a price point of around $4 this stick is by far the most affordable and offers the best smoke for the buck of any of the other offerings.
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...sjmtuicj8.jpeg
I hope you have enjoyed this foray into the joys of fire-cured tobacco. As mentioned earlier, the flavor of fire-cured tobacco is very polarizing, but if you have not tried it yet you owe it to yourself to smoke one of the offerings listed above and for pipe only smokers the Spectre could be the one cigar you might really enjoy.
