Friday, November 17, 2006

A stunning stogie...

How do you roll a 100-foot cigar?

One piece at a time, says master cigar maker Wally Reyes.

On Saturday, the fifth-generation owner of the Gonzalez Habano Cigar Co. will attempt to break the Guinness record for the world's longest cigar.

That record is 66 feet, 111/8 inches, rolled in Havana, Cuba, last year. The one before that was 62 feet, 8 inches. Reyes wants to smoke them all.

He decided eight years ago to try to roll the world's longest cigar, but it's taken him this long to get the financial backing, the right venue and Guinness' attention. Now he has all of that.

Several of Tampa's cigar families have agreed to back him, including the Oliva Cigar Company, which donated its best tobacco leaves and storage space to keep the leaves cool.

"We thought the record should be here in Tampa, not in Cuba," owner John Oliva Jr. said.

Six months ago, the founders of Cigar City Magazine invited Reyes to roll the cigar during the Cigar Heritage Festival at Centennial Park, in front of the magazine's office on 19th Street in Ybor City.

In August, the Guinness Book of World Records, which reviews about 65,000 record claims each year, agreed to send a judge from London to watch Reyes try to break the record. "I only get one shot," Reyes said.

Reyes, 53, has spent the past few months in his small West Tampa workshop crafting wooden molds to shape the cigar and a long table to lay out the cigar and fuse together the pieces.

He and his wife, Margarita, also a master cigar maker, have spent the past couple of weeks rolling 14-foot segments of the cigar, which they keep in a big wooden box.

Reyes will connect his cigar pieces during the festival with the help of 10 student cigar-makers.

Then, the judge will inspect. The cigar has to have a head and a toe, and every segment, if cut, has to be smokeable. But no one will try to smoke the whole thing, Reyes said. "Your eyes will pop."

After the judging, Reyes said he will cut the cigar into 200 half-foot-long sections and sell them for $99 with a framed copy of the Guinness certificate. Half the money will benefit the Ybor City Museum Society, he said. The other half will benefit the Humane Society of Tampa Bay.

Even if Reyes doesn't break the record, he figures he'll at least give the dying cigar-rolling industry exposure.

And if he doesn't break it, he said, he'll try again.

To order your historical frame, call: (813) 348-0343 or

www.worldslongestcigar.com

azayaz@tampabay.com

Here's the deal

The Cigar Heritage Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Centennial Park on Ninth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets in Ybor City. A representative from the Guinness Book of World Records will judge Reyes' cigar at 2:30 p.m. Admission is free, with a suggested donation for the Ybor City Museum Society. The festival opens Friday from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. with Cigars & Stars, a benefit for the Ybor City Museum State Park, 1818 E Ninth Ave. Tickets are $100. For more information, visit www.cigarcitymagazine.com or call (813) 875-4929.

Photos by Chris Zuppa / tbt

Wally Reyes and his wife, Margarita, work on a portion of what is shaping up to be the World's Longest Cigar at Gonzalez Habano Cigar Company

Pieces of the cigar are stored in a special box until its final assembly.