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A fine cigar is as different from a stogie as Chateau de Haviland Bordeaux is from Ripple. And almost as expensive.A good cigar is to be smoked in a leisurely manner in the proper setting. I am aware that your Uncle Herb smoked damp rags that sullied the air for three weeks. Of these I will not speak, but rather extol the merits of The Prince of Tobacco's, the fine cigar. The hand rolled, seed to humidor cigars produced by the famed families of Cuban growers. That nasty business with Castro and the Soviet missiles has long since passed. Yet it's faint echo still reverberates in the politics of the trade embargo. The world's best cigars are not legally available in the United States, the world's greatest market. Shame. However there can be an argument made that the cigars that are produced for sale in the US are to some degree Cuban. When the 'wealthy landowners' fled Cuba they took with them the seeds to start again. Most fine cigar tobaccos are now grown in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Jamaica,Cameroon and yes Connecticut. These locations best mimic the perfect growing conditions found in Cuba. A fine cigar is made completely of tobacco. No paper or fillers or chemicals. Although painstaking steps are taken to ensure consistency, no two cigars are exactly the same. What a grower can offer is quality. Once the tobacco is harvested it is spread out to dry. The green leaves lose their color and become brown. This typically takes two or three weeks. Than the tobacco is sorted, graded and baled into stacks of ten to twenty leaves. It is at this point that fermentation occurs. The internal temperature of the bales can exceed 130 degrees. Moisture, sap, nicotine and ammonia are released from the leaves. The leaves are periodically reshuffled to attain the highest level of consistency. It is during this process when the tobacco takes on it's depth of character. The process is complete when the temperature levels off to a constant. Further aging may or may not take place according to the tobacco intended use. Time to roll 'em baby! A cigar is constructed in three components. The 'filler' is the core of the cigar. It is a single leaf folded as a fan which allows for the cigar to breathe. Next is the 'binder'. This is a strong leaf that gives the cigar it's structure and shape. Finally is the 'wrapper'. This is of one fine leaf, delicately veined, consistent in color and amazingly accounts for 60% of the flavor of the cigar. The roller takes care to place the tip of the leave at the head of the cigar and ending with the stem at the foot. This helps the cigar to burn evenly and the tender tip provides for the first few puffs to be the mildest. That is the basics of cigar production. These cigars will come to market priced from $3 to $25 each. The vast majority are in the $3 to $10 range. It takes quite a cigar lover to navigate through the hundreds of brands available. However cigars are rated as mild, medium or strong. Sizes vary quite a bit and the traditional cylindrical shape can now be square, fluted, bulge in the middle and torpedo.
Years ago a cigar type would be named the same by all the growers. Some are still recognizable. For example: However marketing has diluted the traditional names with new names for a changing clientele. Cigar brands can be daunting to sift through. There are several solid brand names that can be relied upon to provide a quality cigar. Among them are: Cohiba; Puente; Macanudo; Ashton; H. Upton; Avo; Griffin's; Romeo y Julieta; Zino; Royal Jamaica; Partagas; Onyx; Montecristo; Davidoff and Dunhill. That is far from a complete list, but I can assure you that White Owl and El Producto do not make the cut. There are two national magazines that continually rate cigars. CIGAR AFICIONADO and SMOKE. Growers are constantly creating new product lines. It's important to remember that cigars are a commodity like lumber or beef. As such availability can be spotty. Cigars can further be categorized into two types. Natural and maduro wrapper. The natural wrapper is the traditional brown and the maduro is black. The maduro is generally stronger and sweeter, this has been the biggest growth market in the past five years. I prefer the natural wrapper in a robusto size. No discussion of cigars would be complete without mentioning the aesthetics of box adornment and paper rings. Many fine cigars are embellished with highly ornate and collector grade rings. Aristocratic busts of women are a favorite motif. Gullible newbies are sometimes told that certain cigars are rolled between the thighs of virgins. As appealing a vision this may engender the truth is closer to a toothless grandmother packing the puros. The cigar box itself serves two purposes. To keep the cigars safe and to keep the cigars humidified in transit. Again the boxes are generally well constructed with an appealing logo. Just about everyone has a cigar box or two in their basement housing loose nuts and bolts. The other cigar box would be the humidor. The sky is the limit with these. Most hold 50 cigars and can be made from a wide variety of materials. However all will be lined with Spanish ceder. The job of the humidor is to store the cigars in a controlled environment. The standard specifications area constant 70 degrees at 70% humidity. Only distilled water may be used which is absorbed into an inert material. Every so often, depending on the time of year, the ceder lining should be swapped with distilled water. Otherwise the cigars will become bitter. Other fancy accoutrement's can be cutters, ashtrays, lighters and brandy. Purists will only light a cigar with a thin strip of ceder. This will prevent any bad taste from lighter fluid, butane or sulfur matches. Some famous cigar smokers past and present are:
Do not ask me to describe the charms
of reverie, or the contemplative
ecstasy into which the smoke of
the cigar plunges us.
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