Will the real Brazilia please stand up?

[Stewmuse]

...or, just another reason to roll your own smokes. During Friday night's HA broadcast, I lit up a CAO Brazilia. When I clipped the cap, a chunk of wrapper went with it, and the cigar had a very loose draw. About an inch in, I pulled out a small vein, and then half of one side of the cigar just split open. Ticked off, I tore it the rest of the way and unrolled the filler leaves and remaining wrapper to let the coals go out. After spending about 36 hours half in and half out of one of my humidification drawers, I reassembled the filler into a new stick, foot not yet trimmed, shown below. It will be fun to smoke them side by side and see the differences!

[kurtdesign1]

Very very cool. I'll want to hear how it turns out. I have dreams of improperly constructed cigars living another day in experiments like this. I've played with this before and had troubles with the ash-like flavors of the partially burned tobacco tainting the results. Let's hope you didn't take too many puffs for that to occur.

[Stewmuse]

Yeah, that's a concern. I still get some of the burned ash smell from the foot of the cigar. I don't really expect these to be too similar, with a different wrapper and a couple of other leaves added just to keep the filler in place and somewhat cylindrical. Maybe I'll just try taking the wrapper off of some inexpensive sticks and putting on a new one....

[Stewmuse]

So, I smoked this Frankenstick tonight. It was GREAT! I added a Dominican binder and a Colombian seco leaf to the Brazilia leaves and it was definitely a winner. So much so that I'm goin to disembowel a couple more of the Brazilias and do the same surgery again. Victory is mine!

[kurtdesign1]

That's awesome, Mike! What leaf did you use from the Brazilia? Any clue? Could you document the disection & reconstruction to show photos of original components and then your recipe during reanimation?
Thanks! I love this stuff.

For the record, I had some plugged Montecristos a number of years back. I also had some Ramon Allones' that were of a similar length. I had a local roller combine the two fillers into a robusto and the combination was fantastic. Akin to the Mons customs we smoked this summer on Half Ashed. Those combos can be a total blast & very, very educational for pinpointing the characteristics each blend has.

[Stewmuse]

Craig, I used all of the leaves from the Brazilia, simply spreading them out lengthwise and then wrapping them in a Colombian seco and then Domincan binder and Ecuadoran wrapper. I will take several pics when I re/decontruct the next one and post the surgical photos here...

[Stewmuse]

Per Craig's request, the following posts are pics of a CAO Brazilia being turned into another creature. Our protagonists...

[Stewmuse]

The carnage. Removed the wrapper, then split the cigar up the side and peeled it apart.

[Stewmuse]

I really like the taste of the Brazilia, but not it's girth, so I "stretched out" the Brazilia's leaves, then wrapped them in a Colombian seco leaf and Dominican binder before placing into a 7x48 mold.

[Stewmuse]

Out of the mold about to have an Ecuador shade wrapper applied.