Frank Correnti Cigars

Frank Correnti Cigars - David E. Malone - Oct 10, 2007

Any cigar smokers out there?

I don't smoke and my wife quit about 10 years ago... but she still likes to puff on a good Cuban cigar on special occasions. I suspect she enjoys standing around outside after a good meal with some of our cigar smoking friends - I know she doesn't inhale the smoke, just enjoys the taste.

Prices of good Cuban cigars are ridiculous - I recently spent a small fortune replenishing her humidor stock with Montecristos, Romeo & Julietas, and Bolivars. So I was suprised and pleased to get a note from one of our cigar afficianado friends recommending these people...

http://http://www.correnticigars.com/

It seems they make great cigars from imported Cuban leaf and their prices are less than half of what I'm paying for similar Cuban imported cigars. They claim they make a robusto that tastes the same as a Montecristo and it's a half or a third of the price.

So Saturday, we decided to take a trip downtown and visit Frank Correnti Cigars. I'm not fond of downtown traffic and this particular Saturday, the traffic was stacked up at Spadina and the Lakeshore and we slipped into Front street and then down Portland to get to King and Portland. There was no parking, so I found a residential back street and parked there. When we got to the intersection, there was no sign of 'Frank Correnti Cigars' at all. But there was a dark alley-way beside the first building and we decided to try it... about 40 feet down the alley, the ceiling was covered with a white tarp on a scaffold like an outdoor restaurant space but with nothing inside it. Very odd. We found out later that it was a 'smoking space' they use when hosting large parties.

At the very end of the alley, there was a small sign and a door. I thought, "This must be it, but it doesn't look like much...". Inside, it was gloomy with a few offices on each side of the corridor. There didn't seem to be a retail space so we just kept walking until we came into a well lit space with work benches and the smell of cigars. Two women were making cigars - one rolling the filler and another wrapping the finished cigars. Interesting to watch... the woman doing the final wrappers is a genius. They were making Churchills at the time. There was a humidified warehouse at the back where they say they age the leaves for at least 5 years, and a storage humidor room where they keep the finished cigars.

I said something intelligent like,

"Um... is this where we can buy cigars?"

and the woman making the wrappers said,

"Of course... what can I get you?"

She explained what was available and the different types of finishing leaf, Caro and Maduro. Ortelia was quite taken with the robustos which are quite short but have a ring size of 50 - very stout and a substantial cigar. The woman making the fillers was Spanish, so Ortelia had a conversation with her and asked her advice. Basically she said the cigars were all first quality and you can't go wrong with any of them. She smoked them herself at home.

While we were still discussing what to get, a guy wandered in and said,

"Hi, Rita... can you get me a robusto...?"

He looked familiar and after he turned around, I recognized a former senior manager from my office. He recognized me at the same time and I introduced my wife to him. Apparently he is retired and had sold his big house in the suburbs to move to a condo on the Lakeshore. It was his habit to stroll down to the cigar factory every weekend, buy a big cigar or two and then go home and smoke it on his balcony overlooking the lake. He recommended the Caro wrappers as being mild and easy to draw. I bought a half dozen for Ortelia to try - made as Rita mentioned 'last Wednesday'...

Ortelia loves them. She says they smell great, and taste wonderful. But all was not perfect in paradise - the robusto is rather too big for her little hands and now that she's gotten into smoking the Bolivars, she would prefer a cigar with a bit more 'bite' to it. So they are making us up some half-coronas for her with the Maduro wrapper which should be perfect. It's kinda nice that you can 'customize' your cigars. They'll even make you up custom personalized 'rings' and boxes/tins if you want to give them as a gift to somebody.

They looked so good that I (almost) thought about trying one myself.