Blending Seminar with Jose Blanco

[tight_ash]

Last Thursday I was fortunate to attend a great event at Chesapeake Cigar Company (Edgewater, MD). The event was one of the blending seminars put on by Jose Blanco of La Aurora. For a fee of $45 dollars I was given a four pack of small cigars, each being rolled with only one type of tobacco. The four types of tobacco were the different filler and binder elements of the La Aurora 1495. Also included in the event fee was a fiver of 1495 cigars, all with different wrappers.

We sat around and discussed many different aspects of the blending process with Jose as he guided us though the tasting process. Although this hour long seminar only scratched the surface of what goes into blending a great cigar it without a doubt strengthened my appreciation for what goes into making a premium cigar. To make things even better Jose Blanco is an open book who's more than willing to entertain even the "dumbest" question.

I posted this to encourage anyone that has not yet attended one of these events to do so. It's always great to meet and speak with the various cigar celebrities, but to actually sit down with them and get a taste of what they do is really special.