Cuban cigar roller breaks own world record and keeps rolling

Record-setting Cuban cigar roller Jose Castelar has again broken his own world record, rolling a cigar that measures nearly 100 meters, local media reported on Monday.

Castelar, five-time winner of a Guinness World Record, has smashed his previous record set in 2011 for an 81.80-meter-long cigar, after eight days of rolling, Cuban news agency Prensa Latina said.

In an attempt to set his sixth world record, Castelar has used some 80 kilos of tobacco leaves, but his greatest achievement may be that at the age of 71 he also cut the amount of time he needed to roll a more than 80-meter cigar by two days.

However, he faces his toughest task now: wrapping the world's longest cigar in the fine tobacco leaves that conserve a cigar's shape.

"Once the wrapping leaves are prepared, he must perfectly place them so that they are as fitted and stretched as possible, to make his mega-cigar smokable," his main helper Rene Valdes Miller told the news agency.

As many as 100 people were helping Castelar complete the finished product, which was expected to get its final measurement by mid-week, the agency said.

Cuba's most famous cigar roller has been rolling cigars for some 50 years at a factory that today serves as a museum. Endit