The Stogie Guys

In this segment of Random Thoughts from the Humidor, I look at a rousing success, a continuing failure, and the burning of something other than tobacco.

A True Cigar King

First, some good news. In a recent essay in The Tampa Tribune, King Corona Cigars owner Don Barco explored the comeback in the city’s one-time cigar manufacturing hub, Ybor City. For cigar lovers, the most telling parts came when Barco talked about recent trends at his restaurant/bar/café/cigar shop situated on East Seventh Avenue, the district’s main drag. Barco wrote that 2010 was his best since opening 14 years ago, even better than during the ’90s boom. Then, 2011 beat it in sales, “and as the year ended we had our best week of business since the Super Bowl of 2009.” I’ve never met Barco, but I’m sure I’d enjoy having a cigar with him. His shop is my favorite place to enjoy a smoke in Ybor, and StogieGuys.com has sung the praises of one of his house brands, Ybor City Handmades. It’s great to salute a cigar success.

Cuba: Good and Bad

Last year Cigar Aficionado published a colorful report of Havana’s top tourist spots. For a view of life on the island for those who live there, check the March 24-30 issue of The Economist. Its 10-page report has such startling revelations as the fact that while state farms hold 75% of Cuba’s agricultural land, 45% of it was idle and weed-choked as of 2007; the post office sells email access for $1.50 a minute; and Cuba is the only Latin American country with a declining population, a population whose percentage of those under 15 and those over 60 is about equal.

Where There’s This Smoke, There’s Definitely Fire

If you’re involved in fighting smoking restrictions, you can likely find some interesting facts in an InvestigateWest report on the health dangers of wood smoke. For example, Washington state’s “Ecology Department estimates that sooty pollution from sources including wood smoke and diesel exhaust contributes to 1,100 deaths and $190 million in health costs annually.” And among the hazardous chemicals released by burning wood are the carcinogen benzene and carbon monoxide, linked to heart damage. But not a lot is being done because of the high costs and potential punitive impact on poor people who rely on wood for heat. My point isn’t to argue for more restrictions. I think this kind of information can be used to point out to lawmakers that there are many risks and to question whether it’s fair to focus on tobacco simply because it’s an easy target. If air quality is such a vital concern, shouldn’t it be dealt with in a comprehensive fashion? It might well be asked, when do they plan to take action on fireplaces and wood stoves?

–George E

photo credit: Flickr

Gary Mormino and George Pozetta bring us The Immigrant World of Ybor City, one of the best books on Tampa history. And in reading about Tampa, once the cigar-rolling capital of the world, we’re served a little-known slice of cigar history too. Starting with the history of Tampa’s Ybor City, home to more than 250 cigar factories during its peak, the authors take us through a turbulent century of labor disputes, the arrival of Italian, Cuban, and Spanish immigrants, and the rise of one of the world’s great cigar towns.

This excellent read is made for consumers of American history. Highlighting the Spanish-American War and the arrival of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in Tampa, through the city’s immigrant culture we glimpse into a world of American nostalgia and understand why so many who arrived from foreign shores decided to stay. Cigar makers were paid well, and their families had access to libraries, theaters, baseball fields, and affordable healthcare. It was the American dream at its finest. And Mormino and Pozetta have captured it all. From the evolution of Tampa as an urban center to the economic adjustments of the Great Depression. From the establishment of an immigrant culture in to World War Two and beyond.

This book was extensively researched and includes dozens of photographs from the early era of cigar making, from a cigar worker’s neighborhood roots in Italy, to the factory floors of the 1910s. See immigrant women stripping stems from stacks and stacks of tobacco and watch skilled tobacco-selectors grade and pair aged tobacco leaves. Look into the Cuesta Rey factory in 1924 and watch an animated lector shout from an opened newspaper while hundreds of cigar workers listen quietly and roll their product.

What struck me, apart from the vividly detailed history, was the sense of closeness the authors provided. Though many of the anecdotes are from long before the writers were born, they address the day to day activities of the average cigar maker with the familiarity of a man just home from a day at the factory. Their depictions of the local culture—the street-corner orators, the dinging trolley cars, the street vendors—with an intimacy that makes you feel you are watching some tropical Cuban version of The Godfather Part II.

A window into another time, a time when Tampa was the cigar capital of the world. The Immigrant World of Ybor City makes great summer reading for the curious cigar historian.

–Mark M

photo credit: Amazon

The other evening we streamed an old movie to our television and not long into it I got a surprise. One of the actors reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigar.

But that wasn’t the surprise. The movie, The Spanish Cape Mystery, was the first Ellery Queen film, and it was released in 1935. In that era, cigar smoking was common. You’d even see photos of Marlene Dietrich sporting a cigar in the 1930s. No, the surprise came as I watched Berton Churchill—not only aptly named for a cigar smoker, but a long-time actor and Screen Actors Guild founder you’d almost certainly recognize if you watch many pre-1940 movies—slide the cigar from a cellophane sleeve. I knew cellophane had been around a long time, but I had no idea it was used on cigars back then.

So I immediately turned to my buddy Doc Stogie, who I always think of as a font of cigar knowledge, from major to minutia. In fact, Doc’s website is so focused on education, he recently changed it from a .com domain to one that ends with .info.

Doc, of course, knew just where to turn for a definitive answer: Tony Hyman, whose National Cigar Museum is an online treasure. (Warning: Don’t go there unless you have time to while away because you’ll be deeply immersed in the fascinating photos, stories, and lore before you know it.)

The cellophane story goes back a ways before the 1930s and isn’t quite straightforward, according to what Doc reported.

“In 1921, domestic cigar makers started making short-filler cigars to better compete in the post-war boom,” he wrote. “Since short-filled dried out more
rapidly, cigar makers employed foil to preserve cigars.”

Then, in 1931, tobacco giant P. Lorillard began using cellophane on its Postmaster cigars, which listed at 2 for 5 cents in boxes of 100, Doc told me.

And the kicker? Well, Doc let me know that in the same year, Cornell University issued a solemn warning against “eating transparent wrappings
(cellophane) of cigars and other articles.”

There you have it. While it doesn’t quite live up to the intrigue of the Spanish Cape Mystery, the Tale of the Cellophane Conundrum is solved.

–George E

photo credit: Flickr

In the early days of Cigar Rights of America (CRA), the creation of the organization caused a stir for existing groups, especially the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association (IPCPR).

While it’s often forgotten now, just days after the announcement of the founding of CRA in 2008, IPCPR moved to start its own organization for consumers. The group, called “Friends of the Industry,” was hastily announced just a day after CRA was unveiled. Manufacturers, who had lined up behind, and provided the initial funding for, CRA were caught off guard by the IPCPR’s seemingly unplanned attempt to copy the CRA. “All the cigar manufacturers are lining up to be part of the CRA, and we invite the IPCPR to join our organization. I think we should work together,” Ashton president Robbie Levine told Cigar Aficionado.

Nothing much became of IPCPR’s consumer group, at least not officially. Though the association has (thankfully) made more effort lately to encourage consumers to contact their elected representatives, even if they’ve dropped the “Friends of the Industry” group name.

In hindsight this seems to be a good thing. My opinion is informed by being a member of Cigar Rights of America since soon after its founding, and becoming an online media member of the IPCPR last year. Now more than ever I’n glad the CRA was created.

Recently, the need for an independent consumer-oriented group has been reinforced by an ongoing controversy over the role of media (and specifically online media like StogieGuys.com) at the IPCPR annual trade show. My intention isn’t to get into that controversy, but if you want to read more I recommend checking out the opinions of Cigar Craig and Jerry of Stogie Review.

IPCPR primarily represents two key constituencies: the retailers whose numbers make up most of its ranks and the manufacturers who pay a large percentage of its fees, particularly to be part of the trade show. These are important groups, whose fundamental goals are in line with cigar smokers, especially when it comes to anti-tobacco zealots’ attempts to regulate and tax cigars out of existence.

But when it comes to smaller, more internal, issues, cigar consumers’ interests are not always perfectly in line with manufacturers or retailers. The debate over cigar media access to the annual trade show makes this clear. Our readers certainly benefit from our reporting (and that of others) from the trade show, even if some people would prefer a more controlled release of information. That’s part of why the Cigar Rights of America is so fundamental. It represents an increasingly independent voice for consumers and their interests. Cigar smokers need to join the CRA, so the organization can effectively represent cigar smokers exclusively.

“Industry” voices (both manufacturers and retailers) are important and should be supported. But the pure number of voting cigar smokers is a force they need to counter the anti-tobacco lobby. Join today and be proud that you’re a part of the solution.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

A good cigar enthusiast is an informed cigar enthusiast. That’s why I’m so thankful for the vibrant online cigar community as a whole, and why my colleagues and I continuously strive to accurately and comprehensively provide information about the cigars on the market, who makes them, which ones are worth smoking, and what legislation is threatening cigar rights.

In each cigar review, for example, we always try to provide the country (or countries) of origin of the wrapper, binder, and filler, when that information is available. And it often is. So most of our full reviews include a sentence like this: “The blend boasts an Ecuadorian wrapper with a Nicaraguan binder and a three-country filler blend from Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic.” Now that information is important, but it doesn’t really tell us all that much about the cigar or how the cigar will taste. Almost every cigar on the market is some combination of the aforementioned nations, or maybe it also has tobacco from Connecticut, Mexico, Cameroon, etc.

Do I want to know that a cigar has a Mexican wrapper? Yes. But I also want to know a whole lot more. And what I want to know isn’t typically so easily found.

Now I’m not calling for industry standards or government regulations. But it would be nice if cigar manufacturers and retailers listed the kind of tobacco in a cigar, not just the countries of origin. Most already do this for the wrapper, listing it as maduro, corojo, criollo, etc. It gets tougher to find this info on binders and fillers. In a perfect world, I would be able to tell if a stick is, say, stuffed with ligero.

Another huge variable is time. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone listed the box date, or the age of the tobaccos within the cigars, or both? That would help us all better determine if recently purchased smokes need more age or if they’re ready to smoke immediately. And personnel can also make a big difference, especially in terms of setting expectations for quality and consistency. We often know who blended a cigar and where the cigar is rolled. Sometimes, though, those answers are either vague or hard to come by.

As someone who writes often about cigars, you could say I have a vested interest in getting access to information. True. But I would say the same thing about cigar smokers, who need that information in order to make decisions about purchases. To those cigar manufacturers and retailers who already make a lot of the above information available, I applaud you. Those that are more secretive might consider opening up a little.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Flickr

Only a couple years ago, Mexican tobacco was quite the rage. It seemed you couldn’t pick up a cigar magazine or check out a new brand without wading through the hype. Features about the Turrents, Mexico’s leading cigar family, and San Andreas morrón wrapper were as common as Black & Mild displays at a 7-Eleven.

Mexican tobacco, the declaration went, was breaking out, no longer consigned to the New York cabbie smoke, Te-Amo. Well, maybe not. I wouldn’t rank the effort with the failed public relations campaigns behind, say, New Coke or Ford’s Edsel. But I also would call it far from successful.

I couldn’t help but recall all this the other day when I was flipping through a reprint of Cigar Journal’s Finest 25 Cigars of 2011. The intro mentioned how impressed the tasting panel was with the number of countries where the cigars’ tobacco originated, including Mexico.

Looking through the list, though, I couldn’t find any that included Mexican tobacco, though there were two with “secret” filler components. So, maybe the Journal knows those are Mexican or, since it was a reprint, the lead-in referred to other cigars in the full issue.

Next, I went through Cigar Aficionado’s top cigars list for 2011 and quickly found one: La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor Belicoso with that San Andreas wrapper in the second slot. But that was it. Nothing Mexican was listed in the other 24.

When I went back to CA’s list the year before, there were four in the top 25 with Mexican wrappers, including another size of the La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor.

What does all this prove? I’m not sure. I’d posit that it’s another indication that cigar smokers are discerning, generally make up their own minds, and aren’t particularly swayed by advertising or promotion.

I also think my opinion of Mexican tobacco is probably similar to that of many smokers. I routinely find it to have what I can best describe as an unpleasant dry, dirt taste that more often spoils, rather than enhances, a blend. And while I wouldn’t automatically reject a cigar because it had Mexican tobacco, it likely would drop in consideration.

Sometimes I’m surprised to discover that a cigar I enjoyed contains Mexican tobacco; more often, I find it’s in a stick I didn’t particularly like.

What do you think?

–George E

photo credit: Ben Miller

For Americans, Cuban cigars hold a unique mystique. Illegal but not overly difficult to obtain, nearly every cigar smoker has smoked one or knows a guy who can get them. Lately, I’ve been asked a few times about Cuban cigars, so I’ve done some thinking about the puros from that “Island South of Miami.” Specifically, I get asked two common questions:

Are Cubans really the best?

In my opinion, not really. Cuban cigars can be fantastic, but they are far too inconsistent. Construction and flavor seem to regularly vary from box to box, and sometimes stick to stick.

Cuba is probably the best possible place to grow tobacco. Cuba is to cigar production as France is to wine production. It was a comparative advantage in terms of micro-climate. The problem is the production of Cuban cigars is state-owned by a totalitarian regime. No doubt, if the French wine industry was run by a Communist dictator for half a century, the great French wines would have turned unreliable and often poor.

Under one government conglomerate, many Cuban cigars have lost their character. While I’m too young to have experienced it myself, I’m told there was a time when every brand had a unique flavor profile. Today, in addition to the construction issues and lack of properly aged tobacco, too often all Cuban cigars seem to be a variation, of the same basic blend.

What happens when the embargo ends?

Or, more likely, I’m asked something like, “You must be looking forward to the embargo ending?” My answer: Yes, but not for the reason you think.

When the embargo finally ends, and you have to imagine it will eventually, there will certainly be a big run on Cuban cigars. Everyone who has ever smoked a cigar will want to try a Cuban and the result will be more rushed, poorly constructed Cuban cigars than ever.

In other words, once the embargo ends I’ll probably smoke fewer, not more Cuban cigars. Still, I’m excited about one aspect of the embargo ending: the ability for non-Cuban cigar makers to use Cuban tobacco. Once the great cigar makers of our time get access to Cuban tobacco, which they can properly prepare and age and blend with other tobaccos we’ve come to enjoy, then I’ll really be excited about the embargo ending.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Wikipedia