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Perhaps today's multimillion-dollar cigar auction world would never have come to exist, if it hadn't been for arch anticapitalist Fidel Castro. The year 2007, like any year, will receive a mixed review from historians. War, genocide, epidemic and environmental destruction continued apace, as did public apathy and political ineffectiveness. From mug-shaped cigar boxes to gameboard boxes, the cigar makers of the world have shown great creativity in packaging their wares, and no period was more fertile for the cigar-box collector as that from 1878 to the early twentieth century. (All info here courtesy of the National Cigar Museum.) Tobacco's history goes back too far to trace. Paleontologists project that it may have begun growing in the Americas as long as 8000 years ago, and archaeological data indicates that folks have been smoking it, one way or another, four almost four thousand years. Most nonsmokers think of tobacco plants as interchangeable - if you've smoked one, you've smoked 'em all. But as anyone knows who has ever compared the taste of a premium cigar to a cheap one - or who has visited the Middle East, where an undreamt-of range of sweetly intense tobacco smells assault the tourist's nostril - nothing could be further from the truth. When cigar giant CAO announced a special, officially-licensed cigar commemorating the long-running TV show The Sopranos, the combination seemed to make sense. What's less surprising than a cigar company saluting a universally-hailed TV show, whose "hero," Tony Soprano, was so often seen chomping the end of a premium cigar? As we take a closer look at premium cigars from all over the world - those coming from both likely and unlikely regions - we pass on to Honduras, Italy, Mexico and Nicaragua. That's two world-class cigar-making regions that every smoker knows about - and two regions many cigar aficionados don't. Cigars come from all over the world. Why, then, do cigar aficionados so often limit themselves to a handful (literally) of well-regarded smokes from a few highly-regarded companies or regions? Perhaps like a passionate music fan visiting the "International" section of a CD store for the first time... Like any essential, simple activity, lighting a cigar has been rendered an expensive process by modern capitalism. You might think a box of matches would do the trick, but why settle for little sticks of burning wood when you could be lighting your stogies with ... Some businesses just are romantic than others. For example, compare winemaking with toothpick-making. Now, the wine business is, on a day-by-day basis, anything but one ecstatic Cabernet Sauvignon after another. As more and more entertainment venues close themselves off to the rich, complicated odor of cigar smoke, perhaps it's time to remind ourselves that some of history's great artists - writers, entertainers, musicians - were not just smokers but cigar lovers. Great cigars can be made anywhere, of course. But just as Detroit makes us think of cars and Hollywood reminds us of movies, cigar smokers often think of Cuba as the apex of cigar-making. The cigar ratings supplied by publications like Cigar Magazine and Cigar Aficionado form an important part of the modern cigar industry. For cigar smokers, these ratings provide guidance in a crowded market. Who smoked the first cigar? We'll never know, of course, but archeological finds suggest an early date indeed. A ceramic vessel unearthed at Uaxactun, Guatemala, dating from as early as the tenth century, depicts a cigar-smoking man, which suggests that indigenous Mesoamericans smoked cigars at least 500 years before Columbus. Many novice smokers have embarrassed themselves trying to smoke a cigar with the same frantic, huff-and-puff energy that goes into cigarette smoking. But cigars aren't cigarettes, any more than cheap beer is fine wine, and just as you'd never guzzle a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, you shouldn't just inhale a cigar. The smoking jacket: like the cigar itself, it's a timeless emblem of leisure, idleness, "the good life." First widely worn in England during the Victorian period, the smoking jacket has undergone a bit of a resurgence in recent years, as younger consumers turn to it - as they have to, again, the cigar - for a touch of old-fashioned elegance. For many cigar smokers, the small paper band encircling their stogy is just a piece of trash, to be discarded along with the shrinkwrap around the box. But for others that cigar band is a bit of history - a collectible that adds immeasurably to the romance and mystique of smoking. Casual cigar owners often ask themselves: is a humidor really necessary? The answer is: only if you care about the quality and taste of your cigars. After all, for some smokers, the after-dinner cigar is more symbolic than anything - a conspicuous display, perhaps, of taste and leisure, or a social or familial ritual. Cigars can come in any shape or size - it's the ingredients, and the way those ingredients are handled, that makes them good or bad. Almost all cigars (except extremely thin models) are made up of three components: the filler, the binder, and the outer wrapper... Like any hobby, cigar smoking has its own special lingo. This can make cigar shopping intimidating for new smokers, or even for longtime but occasional indulgers. But pull up a chair - it doesn't take long to learn to learn the important terms that will put you at ease when talking with experienced smokers, or help you out at your favorite smoking bar. 1 2 | ||
