Howdy and welcome back to The Texas Bucket List, where we celebrate life in
the Lone Star State and what better way to do that than with a big old cigar! Our
next stop is in Texas City where we found a cigar shop with a Cuban
connection and a colossal collection of handmade coronas. Texas City is a town
known for a funny but over in downtown you will find a refined place for folks
who liked them off their own smoke or wine of the few that do everything the
true traditional Cuban style Manny Lopez is the owner and founder of El Cubano
cigars and there is one thing he wants to clear up my life is not every day
smoking cigars and drinking whiskey and rum could have fooled us come on into
the El Cubano cigar humidor where we keep all of our and kawano cigars that
are ready to enjoy I love the smell area it's all awesome so it's all Spanish
cedar the walls and ceiling everything as well as the boxes is all Spanish
cedar lines now I see all these are your cigars but they have different labels
that's correct so what's unique about us here - ah no cigar factory since we are
cigar factory we only sell the cigars that we make so every cigar that you
will find in this humidor which is over a hundred different cigars are all
handmade here on the premises now these aren't five cent cigars but they are a
bargain and come with a bonus cigar seven dollars the our therapy is free
Manny's family hails from Cuba where the Lopez family had a long rich tradition
of growing tobacco on the island nation since 1904
that is until Castro took over and instituted a new way of doing things
basically they come in take over the property and then you can work for them
at a very minimal wage and happen to many families where all their property
was confiscated by the government and most people left at that point because
there was no no need to be there and be exploited by
the government Manny's family escaped to America there
was a job opportunity for my father here in Texas and they came to Texas and to
Houston and been here ever since proud to be American Manny's father
Manuel would occasionally trifle with tobacco and since they had a history of
it in their family they decided to open Okubo no cigar factory been such a big
part of our family that it was taught to me at an early age because my dad always
rolled his own cigars he taught me as I'm seven eight years old about you know
cigars and the culture and what its involved and what what it's all about
most dads teach their sons that age about baseball I played a lot of
baseball the real homerun here is the family tradition of rollin smoke we do
everything the traditional way the way my family over the generations have done
it it's a very unique way of rolling cigars and it gives it a little bit
different burn a little different flavor profile something with a lot of Cuban
traditions in it but it's actually rolled here in Texas three different
types of filler in in every cigar that we make we make use a cycle for
combustibility we use a diesel flavor aroma we huddle for strength so she'll
take that in each leaf she'll kind of make a little tube what we call in to
lado and then she'll roll that into the
binder and from there it will go into the mold where it'll press for about
three hours on average and then we'll pull it out and wide the outer wrapper
now you see how compact they get everything in there because that looks
like a big funnel leave exactly exactly where all the leaves are placed or very
important so that you get proper combustion with the cigar your darker
richer tobacco will be in the center of the cigar and then around the exterior
will be your lighter your sickle your faster burning tobacco and that will
kind of help keep it burning properly when it comes to picking out your
handmade cigar the options can be a bit daunting but Manny is there to guide you
through the haze to pick the perfect stogie the different color labels will
designate the country of origin of the tobacco that we use to make the cigar so
if you start here we have like our white label for example that's our ecuadorian
blend we also do Nicaraguans will be read our
blue label's are Dominican blends our green labels are Honduran we have the
mani special which is our gold label and then we have our mani anniversary which
is our silver label well a couple of these definitely stick out mani and I
gotta ask is there a reason for this well that's when you have a lot of time
on your hands yeah I would say couple hours at least
at least so that's a good I'm caught on up in the mani limited that is a 49 ring
gauge by 9 and 1/4 inches long so not to be outdone you got one for boys like me
tube that's it that's it I've got the big boys so let's go get on proceed into
the grand president that's a seven inch by seventy ring gauge there that gives
you about two and a half hours to three hours of smoke time they're great for
golf and the football during a football game
yeah right my name is on every cigar since Manny and kawano Lopez on every
cigar so I take a lot of pride in that and when somebody smokes one of my
cigars you know I want to make sure that it's the best that I can possibly make
the conversation and camaraderie of the lounge is where this experience truly
gets its full flavor a chance to hear the stories of how we all got here to
this moment in time to celebrate a glorious day in Texas our culture here
is about maybe a little bit of music in the background but it's more about
conversation I want to create conversations you know and that to me
that's very important I don't ever plan on being the biggest cigar maker in the
world but I'd be very content being the best of our maker in the world