[Dave128]

Originally Posted by T.G

While I can't say if the heart attack story is true or not without checking with Jon, I can say that as of November last year, there were four rolling teams who are responsible for creating the Flying Pigs and if one of the 8 people were to have died it would only affect production until a suitable replacement could be trained for that team, and would not stop production as a whole. Additional training is actually constantly going on, so they might already have someone who is only a very short time away from being ready to produce that particular cigar. Even the production supervisor(s) / trainers could be replaced if they were to be lost, so nothing short of a major catastrophe would make that shape unreproducible.

Regarding the reference to a male roller... none of the rollers at Drew Estates Tobaccos SA are males. The rollers, (rolleras) who are people who finish the cigar and apply the cappa (wrapper) at the factory are women. The men are employed as buncheros, who bunch the tobacco and apply the capote (binder).

Give me a minute or two - I'll toss up some photos of the pigs being rolled if I have them.

Thank you very much for the explanation. I knew the record could be set straight if I mentioned it here.