New Belgian book about cigars

New Belgian book about cigars. Written by the Belgian author Johan Vergote. He combines his two passions. Cigars and books. And that ended up in his latest publication: Billowing delights. The book is also available in Dutch with the name ‘geknipt genot’. And in French, under the name Les cigares plaisir privilégié.

Billowing delights

In the book, Vergote dives into the tobacco. From the seed to the cigar. Both the machine-made cigars and the premium hand-rolled cigars. He writes about everything in between. The climate, the soil, but also the knowledge of the tobacco grower. What has to be done to grow the best possible tobacco. And then the next step, how dry the tobacco, how to cure it. How to ferment the tobacco and age it before using it to roll it into a cigar.

After the aging of tobacco, it’s all about the production. And that’s the next chapter in the book. For this, Vergote visited Belgian’s largest tobacco company J.Cortes. Cortes is the producer of machine-made cigars. Those are made on Sri Lanka, with mainly Indonesian tobacco. But Cortes also owns the Nicaraguan cigar manufacturer and tobacco grower Oliva Cigars. Their know-how was an invaluable source of information for the author.

The final chapters are about the complete product. About the different sizes and shapes. How to treat your cigars. And of course, how to enjoy your cigars. After all, that is the most important part of the cigar culture. As a finishing touch, the book comes packed in a cigar box. The Dutch online retailer sells English and French translations. The Dutch translation will be available on that website shortly.

About the author

Vergote was a retailer selling books for twenty-five years. In 2008, he started his own publishing company Bibliodroom. With his experience as a writer and a book retailer, he looks for niches in the market. Like a new Belgian book about cigars. Bibliodroom does things differently and earned its place in the Belgian and Dutch publishing community.