German championship in slow smoking 2022 at Bückeburg Castle
German Slow Smoking Championship 2022 is over. This year, aficionados met for the "German Slow Smoking Championship" on October 15, 2022 at Bückeburg Castle in Lower Saxony, the ancestral seat of the House of Schaumburg-Lippe. The German Habanos Day was also held here last year. The slow-smoking competition was held in the garden hall of the magnificent estate, with a fitting acoustic accompaniment by pianist Jeroen Jacobs.
In the run-up to qualification competitions
25 participants qualified for the championship. Competitions are held across the country in the run-up to the event, in which the top three finishers qualify for the final. Unfortunately, not all those who qualified were able to take part in the championship due to Covid-19.
The championship began in the afternoon. Gerhard Heimsath from Art of Smoke, the host and organizer of the entire competition, gave the starting signal shortly after 3 pm. The winner is the one who can keep his Montecristo No.4 burning the longest. The rules of the competition are strict. The cigar may only be lit once. If you burn the cigar ring at the end, you are disqualified. Ashing within the first 40 minutes will result in a time deduction.
The smoking times
The first participant had to leave the field after just twelve minutes. After about an hour, four participants in total were no longer with us.
Normally, a smoking time of around one hour is a common time for the 129 mm long Mareva format. But the participants can do more. After just over an hour, there were still 14 participants in the race. But then the field thinned out. After an hour and a half, seven candidates were still in the running.
And then things got exciting just before the two-hour mark. After 1h49min, Egon Theisen dropped out and took third place. Just a few minutes later, Oliver Steinhäuser put down his cigar and took second place. The winner, who easily managed the two-hour mark, was thus decided: Daniel Bretschneider, the youngest ever participant in the competition and still a newcomer to cigar smoking.
The sponsor 5TH Avenue
5THAvenue sponsored the event and the winners each received a box of the finest Habanos. The participants and guests rounded off the evening together in the magnificent Golden Hall of the castle, enjoying fine food, wines, spirits and Habanos.
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