Trip To Tabacalera Perdomo – Part Three of a Three Part Series by Mr. Jonathan

Last week, Mr. Jonathan and David Garofalo were guests of Nick Perdomo in Nicaragua at this factory. This is the last of a three-part series on the trip as submitted by Mr. Jonathan.

Our Final Day Tabacalera Perdomo:
Day 2 begins with Nick Perdomo explaining how he came to love Bourbon barrel aging. The idea itself came from Nick’s dad and although Nick had some reservations at first he was quickly ready to change the game completely. As he began experimenting with the barrels and the tobacco Perdomo Habano was born in 2000 which was the first cigar to feature a Bourbon barrel aged wrapper. Some tobaccos from 2003, 2004, and 2005 where set aside and aged for 10 years then placed gingerly into barrels to be aged for 2 more years eventually becoming the Vintage Double Aged lines. Each barrel has a shelf life of 25 years so Nick still has his 11 original barrels in his barrel fleet of 511 and every cigar bearing the Perdomo name is wrapped in tobacco that has been given its final fermentation in a bourbon barrel. It was here that someone asked the question “How much do you plan to grow as a company each year?” and without hesitation Nick proudly replied that he plans on ramping up production by expanding his fields and fermentation to keep ahead of his projected 20% annual growth.

Now the we learned how the wrappers were fermented it was time to meet Helsey in the stripping department. The stripping department treats the tobacco like this is “step one” all over again, even though they fall around the half way mark. Here the wrappers and binders are deveined and separated by left and right. If a left-handed wrapper goes on a right-handed binder the cigar will look very uneven and lumpy. Also if a thick wrapper is paired with a thick binder the cigar will not burn. Helsey’s people sort on white formica tables under white LED lighting so they can see the true difference in color variations without any shadows or shade altering yellow lighting. Here wrappers, binders, and fillers are sorted for what seems like the 5th time by size, thickness, and texture. Her department also puts together the dosing for the rollers.

The rolling department is run by Sarah Gonzalez a woman who re-tired from Perdomo last year and even though she was receiving her salary for life she couldn’t stay away and came back to work full-time with 51 years of experience. Each roller gets a pre-made pre-weighed package with the exact amount of tobacco needed to roll 250 cigars. Because of how closely and scientifically every step has been checked and re-checked up to this point, Perdomo can hold his rollers to less than 1oz of waste per 400lbs. Each pair of rollers makes between 450 and 500 cigars in one 9 hour shift. Rollers can earn more than doctors in Nicaragua. On any given day up to 6 different blends can be made and the factory is in full production Monday – Saturday. Once the binder has been passed and the blanks have been pressed into their molds they head over to be draw tested. Every second 18 cigars can be draw tested and Perdomo sees an average of only 11-16 rejects per shift. The rollers who roll these rejects are brought over and shown why the cigars where rejected and are given the deconstructed materials and a second chance at remaking those cigars. Including draw testing there are 6 different and ongoing inspections of each cigar before the wrapper is applied.

At Perdomo, rollers stay on one size for most if not all of their time with the company with the best rollers on the Torpedo line. The rollers are ambidextrous so they can match left-handed wrappers over left-handed binders. Rollers are paid by what tier they are from C up to A. To be an A Tier roller you must be able to roll 120,000 cigars in one year with no more than 12 bad sticks. This is no easy task since the cigars at this point get checked 17 times before they make it to the box. The final check is a room in the back of the factory where every single cigar gets one final check by one of three guys. They have there own draw testing machine and they have the final say of which cigars are ready to don a Perdomo band. This factory lets nothing go to waste and it does not produce “seconds.” A cigar that gets rejected gets re-rolled or fixed which is why Nick Perdomo himself can handle all the complaints that come in from consumers and retailers. Last year a total of 11 complaints came in, and after researching the issues personally, 8 of them turned out to be user error meaning, such as, a customer may have complained that his cigar unravelled and it turned out to be cut too low.

The box factory was no different from the rest of Perdomo’s operation. Every detail from never harvesting trees on a full moon because then the wood will forever leak sap, to making PorterCable $13 Million dollars by coming up with a design that not only relieves wrist strain but it allows for 80% of the quick drying stain to make it on to the box. Nick makes everything him self from staples to silk screens and from dovetailed corners to wood putty. Boxes that say Perdomo on them have 19 quality control steps before they are individually bagged and stored for future use. The factory has 189 workers that, at full production, can produce 3600 handmade wooden boxes per day.

Perdomo sits on 8 million cigars in aging, $9.1 million in paper goods (bands, inserts, shelf talkers), and 4.5 months of boxes to feed the final step in the process…banding. The banding department makes its own cellophane at 90,000 tubes a day. It color sorts the cigars so that every cigar in the box looks the same, applies the bands, cellos the cigars and boxes them up. At this point most factories would be done but at Perdomo every cigar is taken out of every box and everything is inspected one last time before the box is adorned with its decorative paper goods, shrink wrapped, and packed in its carton. Once 758 cartons are ready in the staging area they are loaded into a massive deep freezer and brought down to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. The deep freeze kills any beetles, larva, and cracks any eggs that may be on the leaves. Once complete the cigars are loaded in to a shipping container. All 758 crates fit with only 1 centimeter of space at the top.

At this point we have seen perfect seeds that were shot into perfect soil and grown in as close to perfect conditions as the weather would allow. Leaves have been carefully picked, cured, sorted, fermented, sorted, fermented, sorted, fermented, sorted, de-veined, sorted, rolled to binder, checked, draw tested, had the wrapper applied, inspected, aged, inspected, banded, cellophane applied, the box is built, inspected, painted, inspected, filled with cigars, emptied and everything is inspected, filled again, inspected, adorned, inspected, sealed, inspected, frozen, and shipped. Although Nick is proud of his factory’s bullet proof reputation for making hand-made products perform at a rate not yet achieved in any other industry, he does not rest on his laurels. During this tour I counted no less than 5 out right inventions, 4 of which can not be seen accept for on his tour because he will not got to market with the products. The attention to detail on everything that Perdomo makes means that any retailer can recommend any Perdomo cigar to any consumer (so long as the strength profile is correct) and be guaranteed that the draw will be good and the cigar will burn true. Taste may be subjective but construction is a science and Nick Perdomo has every part of his operation down to a science!

In case you missed it:
Monday: Part 1 of our 3-Part Series
Tuesday: Part 2 of our 3-Part Series