Stogie Commentary: Turning Green and Two Questions

The other day I had a little time for a smoke, so I began looking through my stash for a small cigar. But before finding one, I noticed a green thing, roughly robusto-sizes, that had been there for quite awhile: an Iguana from Thompson that I almost certainly picked up at one of their cigar events I’ve attended. I thought, “Hey, I’ll give it a try. If my memory of the last candela I smoked is correct, I won’t like it very much and it’ll end up being a short smoke.”

Well, I ended up smoking about half of it. In all honesty, it began fairly nicely. Mild, with a touch of sweetness and tobacco. But that didn’t last. The Iguana produced a lot of smoke—again, not what I recall from previous candelas—but it quickly became so dry and tasteless that I could imagine I was smoking dry pine needles rather than tobacco.

So, that leads to question number one: Does anyone smoke candelas on a regular basis?

The second question was prompted by a recent visit to a cigar shop where I found myself gazing at some of the pipes displayed on the wall. I smoked a pipe years ago during one of my attempts to quit smoking cigarettes. I enjoyed it but eventually gave up because of what seemed like too much process and too little enjoyment. Poking around on the web I found quite a few sites related to pipe smoking, two of the most interesting being the Old Toby podcast and the Bootleg Bon Vivant blog.

I haven’t taken up a pipe again, but I am thinking about. Hence, question number two: How many of you out there smoke pipes and how do you compare it to cigar smoking? I’m eager to read your answers.

-George E

photo credit: Old Toby