View of the "World Longest Cigar" - 101 ft. long

New World Record in Tampa, Florida USA

Whether you call it Cigar City or the Cigar Capital of the World, Ybor City in Tampa, Florida hosted the annual Cigar Heritage Festival on Saturday. Although thousands attended to celebrate cigar culture in the historic distric, the main attraction was the rolling of the biggest cigar in recorded history.

A core team of about 14 volunteers was supervised by Wallace Reyes of the Gonzalez Habano Cigar Factory in Tampa to work on breaking the previous cigar record in Cuba, of 67 feet 11 inches. The idea of this attempt was to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the cigar company, one of the last ones of this class in Tampa.

After 76 hours of rolling and gluing, this this monstrosity of a cigar wound up measuring 101 feet long with a 61 ring gauge.

The 53-pound cigar is to be cut into six-inch sections. Each segment will be framed in a shadow box and will sport a band designed specially for the event. A reproduction of the Guinness Book of World Records certificate of authenticity will also be included. Each cigar frame will cost $100, with the proceeds benefiting The Humane Society of Tampa Bay and the Ybor City Museum Society. This way and by first time the cigar connoisseurs will have the opportunity to have a piece of a world record cigar.

Assuming no one creates a longer cigar by July 2007, the Reyes's record cigar will be acknowledged in the 2008 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Tampa holds now two records, "Capitol Cigar of the World & World's Longest Cigar." So far the record was confirm by Guinness, London.

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