Dark-fired tobacco that is fermented and aged before rolling is what makes these smokes unique. Fermented? "The same as a brewer fermenting hops or a vintner fermenting grapes," says Dominic Keating, one of the third generation owners, and head of production at Avanti's 35,000 square foot plant. The filler is fermented for 61 days in Lancaster, Pennsylvania before being shipped to the Scranton facility. Keating explains, "You just can't achieve this taste any other way."
The filler is very wet when it arrives in hogsheads - huge, round wooden containers - at the Scranton facility, and it's then dried before being sent to the factory floor, where it is wrapped. "The wrapper goes around the filler twice," says Tony Jr. "We don't use a homogenized binder because it's made with some non-tobacco elements."
The company has 45 employees in the production end. Sixteen machines make the five cheroot sizes that the company markets, in 31 packages, under a variety of brand names. (A cheroot is a cigar clipped at both ends during manufacturing.) The sizes vary in length from 3.5 to 6.5 inches long, with ring gauges from 34 to 37.
Once the filler and wrapper are joined, the newly minted cheroots are then placed in curing rooms, where large trays of cigars are racked to the ceilings. "It's not only a drying process," says Keating. "It's here that the wrappers ferment and are married to the filler." Halfway through the curing, some of the cigars are cut into the more popular half-size cheroots. Once the curing is complete, the hardened cheroots are either packaged immediately or they are hand-brushed with anisette or bourbon flavors. "The anisette-flavored Avanti cigar is our second biggest seller," Tony, Jr. says. (Avanti also manufactures private-label cigars for Francis Ford Coppola and others, using red wine and vanilla flavors.)
The flavored cigars sit overnight before being packaged. All packaged cigars, flavored or natural, are then sent to the humidor for a final mellowing of three months, before being shipped. The total combined aging process is six months. (Caveat emptor: Smokers familiar with a premium stick should be aware that the Toscano-style cheroot is hard and dry when smoked. Chomping down can cause the cigar to disintegrate between the teeth.)
