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98-Foot Cigar Won't Make The Book

The Associated Press

Jose Castelar rolls an oversized cigar at the International Tourism Fair in Havana May 6. Castelar and a team of five assistants are using nearly 93 pounds (42 kilograms) of top-quality tobacco to assemble a 98 foot (30 meter) cigar they hope will land them a fourth Guinness Book World Record.

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The Associated Press

Published: May 7, 2008

HAVANA - Looks like it will be close, but no giant cigar, for Cuba's stogie-rolling king Jose Castelar.

The former world-record holder has teamed up with five assistants, using nearly 93 pounds of top-quality tobacco to assemble a 98-foot cigar.

Castelar set Guinness World Records for the world's longest cigars in 2001, 2003 and April 2005, when he completed a stogie measuring 20.41 meters, just shy of 67 feet. On Tuesday, he said he is shooting for a fourth title.

Castelar, 64, who learned the art of making cigars from an uncle at age 5, is likely to fall short this time: Guinness says Puerto Rican cigarmaker Patricio Pena crafted a whopping 135-foot stogie last year.

Competition from cigar rollers in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is stiff but friendly, driving Castelar to keep rolling.

"I'm working to take it to the maximum," he said. "We'll be back in two years with a longer one."

Still, in a colonial fortress across the bay from Havana's main drag, his team is now crafting a cigar so long and so thick - more than 2 inches across - it can never actually be smoked.

It will have taken five eight-hour days of work before this stogie is ready for unveiling Friday at an international tourism fair, Castelar said.

Hand-rolled cigars are one of communist Cuba's signature products. The island sold $402 million worth of them last year, with top markets in Spain, France, Germany and Switzerland. The United States is excluded because of its trade embargo against the island.

In 2006, the Gonzalez Habano Cigar Co. brought the record to Tampa with a 101-foot cigar.

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