"Aruhiba", a new cigar rolled from tobacco grown on the island. This new product, bound to attract attention, was the brainchild of Benjamin Petrochi.
In the small, upscale cigar shop he opened June of 2006 next to the "Windmill", he sits, rolling and cutting his Aruban grown tobacco leaves, shaping them into the perfect thickness and length.
Petrochi is a man who is passionate about his work. Having sold cigars from other countries for over a decade, six years ago he decided that he wanted to produce his own, from scratch.
It is an arduous process, likened more to a labor of love, to produce the kind of cigar connoisseurs desire. Growing tobacco in Aruba is no easy feat and Petrochi has toiled endlessly for the last six years. Petrochi’s tobacco production is relatively small and he does everything himself, much the way things were done years ago.
While Petrochi began using his tobacco two years ago to roll cigars for himself, it is just now that the tobacco is ready to be used to produce commercial quality cigars.
Tobacco plants require nine months of cultivation. The challenges are many. "It’s not easy in Aruba; you have to contend with the weather and the insects. I have to fight the white flies every day," he said. Despite the bugs, he tries to use as little pesticide as possible.
He plants seeds during the rainy season and believes that "seeds must be grown in the ground, not in pots!" After sprouting, he takes the seedlings and carefully transplants each one onto another plot of soil. As the plants grow, he tends to them faithfully, carefully watering and pruning them. Some select plants are grown in the shade as their leaves are used for the outer wrapping of the cigar.
"Tobacco plants only like rain water or lake water, you can’t use water ‘from the pipe’ on them," he emphasized.
When the plants are ready, he harvests the young leaves, dries them for a couple of months and then places the leaves in special bags to ferment.
"What makes good cigars is the way you ferment the tobacco, like wine. It depends on what want. For a very strong cigar, you must ferment the tobacco for five years; for a mild cigar, it’s 2 years; for very mild cigar, you only need one year. The fermentation creates the nicotine," he explained.
Unlike commercial factories, he does not use any chemicals to aid in the fermentation. Thus, his cigars have a pure, rich flavor.
While Petrochi still sells Cuban cigars, he plans to phase them out as his product line grows. He explained that consumers want Cuban cigars not necessarily because they are better, but because they are not available. He added that people preferred Cubans because they were a stronger cigar, "but they are not that way anymore."
He joked, smiling, "my cigars are Aruban "but the seed, it might be from Cuba!"
As a natural born salesman, it seems that there is no better way for him to combine his passion for selling, his love of tobacco and his patriotism for Aruba than to produce and sell his Aruhibas. The few cigars he had available last year flew off of the shelves. This year’s production will be more plentiful and will start selling for $5 each.
As Aruhibas smoke out the competition, look for more original Aruban products in the future.