Cigar makers hard to find

Inocensio Martinez sits in front of a long wooden desk in a store along the Las Vegas Strip.

He takes a long, moist, paper-thin tobacco leaf and begins to stretch it carefully.

The leaf will soon be the outer wrapper of a fine, aromatic cigar. He slowly rolls it around a cigar made earlier in the day and sets it in place using a glue made from tree sap.

The tobacco comes from Central America. And so do the people making the cigars. But the stogies are made at Las Vegas Cigar Co. amid the hustle and bustle of the Strip.

Finding people to do that kind of work isn't easy, owner Richard Galdieri says. Place an ad in the classifieds for a year and you still wouldn't get an answer from a qualified cigar roller.

Instead, recruiting a master cigar maker is done in much the same way a business hires top-level executives -- through word of mouth.

"The cigar makers themselves have a little fraternity," Galdieri said. "One good cigar maker knows another good cigar maker."

Through that word of mouth, and a good bit of phone work, Galdieri has found cigar makers for his business for 10 years. They are mostly from Cuba -- or Cubans from Miami -- and the Dominican Republic.

It's worth the effort. Galdieri likens cigar rolling to an art form.

"If they don't feel well, or they have something on their mind, they don't want to work," he said. "It takes a lot of concentration to make a cigar."

It's more than taking a wad of tobacco and rolling it up. The company uses a special blend developed by Galdieri. Certain types of tobacco go in a certain place in the cigar, and it has to be a precise amount.

Dark tobacco goes in the inside, light tobacco on the outside. That, along with the size and length, will ultimately determine how the cigar tastes.

"The inside of a cigar is the taste," Galdieri said. "The outside is the aroma. The rule of thumb is, the bigger you go, the more body it has."

The leaves are shredded, placed with utmost precision and rolled. They are then placed in a press for about two hours, before emerging in the perfectly rounded shape with which stogie aficionados are familiar. At that point the wrapper is rolled onto the product. It is then aged for about 90 days in wooden boxes at a warehouse.

The cigars are then either sold in Las Vegas or shipped to customers around the world.

A good cigar maker will make about 200 to 250 cigars per day.

That's added up to a lot of cigars in the time Galdieri has been in business. In the early days of his business, cigars weren't so popular. Galdieri said he and his wife would take tobacco home to be prepared for rolling.

"It was tough to make a living. It was not a lucrative business," he said.

During this decade, however, the business has been on a roller coaster. Much to the alarm of anti-tobacco advocates around the country, the cigar became downright trendy in the mid-1990s.

Celebrities, including women, were seen smoking them, and bars serving cigars became vogue.

"Once they showed Demi Moore with a cigar, it just took off," Galdieri said.

Magazines such as Cigar Aficionado became popular.

Just this month, jaws dropped over a cigar incident in the Starr report on President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. But even before the Lewinsky scandal broke, Clinton was known to enjoy smoking cigars.

Galdieri boasts his own celebrity clientele. His wall shows pictures of celebrities ranging from boxer Butter Bean to notable cigar toker and comedian Milton Berle. He claims even basketball great Michael Jordan as a customer.

The cigar craze lured a lot of newcomers to the business, and the smokes were selling for as much as $20 each. The fad has since declined, Galdieri said. Fewer people are lighting up, but there is still a market.

Before the popularity, Las Vegas Cigar Co. employed five cigar makers. At its peak, 24 employees made the cigars. Today there are about 14.

Fads are cyclical. But Galdieri doesn't expect to see such boom times again.

"I hope I see it again, but I really don't think I will," he said.

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