Support Connecticut Farmers -- Smoke Cigars
For Throwback Wednesday, the precious plant of DDM's homeland
Almost exactly 15 years ago, I penned a tribute to the best thing to come out of the Connecticut River Valley. One of the local newspapers ran the column in its “LIVING” section — still haven’t decided if that was an honor or an insult.
Anyway, enjoy!
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Don’t search for Connecticut’s most lucrative agricultural commodity at your local farmers’ market. Instead, visit a smoke shop.
Unbeknownst to millions of Nutmeggers, cigar tobacco is their state’s cash crop.
The colonists who settled along the Connecticut River found the valley’s aboriginal inhabitants puffing on tobacco, and by the 1800s thousands of acres of broadleaf were under cultivation. At the end of the 19th century, imported Sumatran leaves put the future of Connecticut’s industry at risk. But farmers rose to the challenge, crafting an intricate — if horridly labor-intensive — process using cloth tents to boost humidity, block out insects, and shield plants from the harsh sun of Southern New England summers.
Connecticut’s shade-grown leaves were quickly recognized as the best tobacco for cigar wrappers, a consensus that continues to this day. According to one writer, the “Connecticut Valley is to quality tobacco what the Médoc region of Bordeaux is to fine wine.” Adequate rainfall, rich soil, and ample, if shaded, sunshine combine to produce a leaf with the taste, aroma, and burn characteristics prized by high-end manufacturers. (The darker, thick-veined, multipurpose broadleaf variety is still grown in unshaded fields.)
By the time the tobacco-themed Parrish (a cheesy melodrama starring Troy Donahue, Karl Malden, and Claudette Colbert) appeared in theaters, U.S. cigar consumption was in decline. Between the 1920s and the movie’s 1961 premiere, tobacco production in Connecticut had fallen 75 percent. Farmers struggled on through the ‘70s and ‘80s, and by 1992 the harvest was a mere 6.3 percent of the amount grown in the peak year of 1921.
Then cigars became cool again. Celebrities — including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, and Demi Moore — unapologetically declared their stogie habits, and millions of Generation Xers followed suit. The magazines Cigar Aficionado (1992) and Smoke (1995) appeared.
Between 1993 and 1996, sales of cigars in the U.S. rose by over 28 percent. Premium-cigar consumption rose 148 percent. As many predicted, the cigar craze has tapered off a bit. But in Connecticut, there are more than twice as many acres devoted to tobacco today than in 1992, and 2008’s crop is estimated to be 4.6 million pounds.
The boost in demand was certainly welcome, but little else about the industry has changed. The work remains brutal, because cigar tobacco doesn’t take to automation. Thousands of seasonal workers must hand-plant the seedlings in the spring, then hand-harvest the weed’s leaves during what is usually the hottest part of summer. (Most office employees — heck, most longshoremen — wouldn’t last 15 minutes. Some workers who have experience on sugarcane plantations say laboring in Connecticut’s shade-tobacco fields is just as tough.)
Then work shifts to the curing sheds, where tobacco is hung up and left to dry for several weeks. More processing (fermentation, grading) follows, most of it done in the Caribbean region. Eventually, machines or master craftsmen fabricate the final product. General Cigar claims the tobacco in its hand-rolled premium brands, such as Macanudo and Cohiba, “may be touched as many as 100 times” before it becomes a cigar.
Mother Nature imposes additional hardships. Drought, hail, hurricanes, blossom rot, brown spot, and blue mold are constant threats. (Earlier this month, and just days before the harvest, hail wiped out nearly all of one Glastonbury farmer’s crop.)
The Nutmeg State’s tobacco story offers at least two lessons for policymakers struggling with the challenges of a stagnant economy. The first is to recognize the often-unseen benefits of foreign competition. Were it not for the pressure of Sumatran imports, the legendary tobacco of the Connecticut River Valley wouldn’t exist. While the tent-cloth technique has been tried elsewhere, Cigar Aficionado reports that “only tobacco grown in this small valley looks and tastes like true Connecticut shade.”
The second lesson is a warning about central planning. Decades ago, no Connecticut “economic development” bureaucrat predicted the plunge in cigar sales. In the 1990s, none foresaw that action-movie icons, starlets, and a revolt against the Nanny State would spark the revitalization of a crop long assumed to be passing into history. The marketplace is fickle, and planners have no ability to anticipate consumer trends, much less shift taxes, subsidies, and regulations in response.
If the price of long-distance travel is keeping you close to home, before the summer’s over, visit the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Museum in Windsor. Along the way you might pass a tractor hauling tobacco leaves to a nearby shed. Wave at the driver. He’s doing the harsh and thankless work of harvesting Connecticut’s most valuable crop.