Holy smoke!
2005-05-20 11:10
Puerto Rico - A Dominican cigar-maker in Puerto Rico received a big birthday surprise from the Guinness Book of World Records _ confirmation that he rolled the world's longest stogie, breaking a Cuban man's record.
Patricio Pena rolled the cigar - measuring 19.03 metres - at a vegetable market in Puerto Rico's capital in January and it has been hanging there in a plastic case ever since with a sign declaring it the world's biggest. The sign doesn't lie, now that London-based Guinness sent him confirmation.
He received the notification on Wednesday, his 44th birthday. "I'm so happy, you can't imagine," Pena said. "It was my birthday gift."
Guinness spokesperson Kate White confirmed Pena's feat.
Pena, originally from Tamboril, Dominican Republic in the north-central region of Santiago, has lived in Puerto Rico for the past three decades.
He first started rolling cigars at age seven, and has continued the practice in Puerto Rico. Pena rolls regular-sized cigars at a table outside Plaza del Mercado vegetable market in the Santurce district of San Juan, the capital of the US Caribbean territory.
Pena displaced Cuba - the king of cigar-making - as the home of the world's largest cigar. The previous Guinness record-holder was Jose Castelar Cairo of Havana who made a 13.5-metre-long) cigar in August 2003.
Pena, who doesn't smoke, said he may have to adopt the habit at least once.
- AP