Quality Cigar Experts

I've always loved stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in Camelot. I read those stories as a kid, and got to revisit them again as an undergrad thanks to an English course that was dedicated to the body of work devoted to his legend. Let' s just say that my parents were extremely skeptical that this course would prepare me for life outside of college, but I still had a good time taking it and every senior needs a fun course or two before graduating.

My brother feels the same way about classical mythology, so he recently picked up some Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur cigars, and I smoked some the last time I visited. Not only did I enjoy them tremendously, in some ways I like the legend of how these cigars came to be.

As the company tells it, the Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur cigars have their genesis in a tobacco seed smuggled out of Cuba via a diplomatic pouch. Once these contraband seeds arrived in Honduras, it was grown and treated in the manner of the best Cuban cigar growers, allowed to age naturally, via the local winds and weather that produce such excellent cigars. Decades later, we have one of best-selling sticks available anywhere.

OK, I admit that this isn't quite a legend equal to that of the Knights of the Round Table and the Once or Future King, and the famed sword that gives these cigars their name. Then again, tobacco was centuries away from reaching Europe in King Arthur's day. I'm thinking maybe the modern-day generation gets the best end of that exchange.

I always like to know who my cigars are named after, so when I first saw Muriel Coronella cigars for sale I did some quick google searching to see who "Muriel Coronella" was. (This was years ago -- don't judge!)

Of course, that was dumb. There is no "Muriel Coronella," regardless of how much the company tries to trick you by putting a picture of a woman in historical-looking garb on the box. But that's OK, because that bit of research got me some historical trivia about the brand that some of you probably already knew about.

There was a woman behind the Muriel Coronella cigars sales pitch years ago, but her name wasn't Muriel. Instead, Edie Adams became the face of Muriel cigars in the 1960s. The singer and comedienne sang some classic bits advertising the products, famously parodying the hit showtune single from "Sweet Charity by crooning "Hey big spender, spend a little dime with me." Adams was one of the sirens of her day, and a sultry request from her would be enough to make even the most dedicated fan of a particular brand consider switching if it would please her.

Moreover, Adams was more than a spokesmodel -- she even patented a cigar holder-ring, designed to make women look more "ladylike" when taking a puff.

Incidentally, she was married during that period to Ernie Kovacs, a comedian who endorsed Dutch Masters cigars instead. There's no word on how the two reconciled their cigar differences, but I've seen pictures of both Adams and Kovacs and I'm pretty sure I know who would have made the most convincing case to me.

I'm about to do something I rarely do and recommend a product I can't own myself. Don't worry ... I can explain.

Though as I get older I'm taking better care of my possessions, in some areas I'm still someone who can't have nice things. Cigar lighters are among these categories. I lose them far too often to be trusted with anything too valuable, as they are as likely to wind up in my friends' or acquaintances' pockets as they are my own at the end of the night.

But if I could have nice things, I would get myself the Xikar EXII Havana lighter. Like the rest of the Xikar Havana collection, it has a retro look to it, with the old-school cigar band design that looks like it should be sold in a gallery or museum shop along with online at Thompson Cigar.

It's guaranteed to cause everyone around you to take a closer look at it. Well, that's not technically true. That's just extremely likely. But it does carry with it a lifetime warranty, as well as a large thumb trigger that makes lighting a breeze and a flame stable enough to light your premium cigars in winds that would make an ordinary lighter ineffective.

But the fact that it looks so striking makes me reluctant to buy it for myself. I know that I'll lose track of it as it's being passed around, and when I pat my pocket at the end of the night it won't be around. If you are better able to monitor your prized possessions than I am, however, this is one cigar accessory that will make you stand out from the crowd.

As a father of two children, I'm very conscious of setting a good example for them. I know that all the words in the world won't be as effective as the behavior that I model myself, and I think of that every time I'm tempted to use disrespectful language or act in a way that I'd be mortified if they imitated.

I've been asked by non-smokers whether I'm comfortable smoking cigars around the kids, or whether I'm afraid that they will pick up the habit. For me, it's a no-brainer. I don't have a problem lighting up around my children.

There are a couple of reasons. For starters, like a lot of people, I parent my children like I remember being parented as a kid. Some of my fondest memories are of watching my grandfather smoke his Garcia Vega cigars, and I grew up fine. Why won't my son and daughter?

But on a more practical and less nostalgic level, I like to smoke cigars and I'm not ashamed of it. Smoking is legal, and I don't want to make it out like something that has to be done in secret. I figure that in the long run, they will be better served by watching me smoke in moderation than they would be wondering what was so dangerous about cigars that they have to be enjoyed in secret.

When they are old enough, I won't have a problem if my kids elect to become cigar smokers. What better way to make sure they do so responsibly than by letting them see how I do it myself?

got some unexpected bad news the other day when I took my son for a haircut. The cigar shop that had been next door to the barbershop had shut its doors for good.

I felt terrible for the proprietor, who seemed like a great guy and was always patient with me as I explored the cigars, and with my son on the occasions when I brought him along and he was (to put it nicely) slightly more eager to leave than I was. But I wasn't surprised. The Washington D.C. area is like everywhere else, it seems -- it's harder to smoke in public, which means there's less walk-up business than ever. You can't grab a single stick to smoke at the pizza place next door any more, for example, because that's now illegal.

I've definitely a smoker who likes to buy cigars online, for the same reason I buy almost anything else online -- the selection is better, the prices are lower, and it's much more convenient. And while I'm sure that is part of the reason the bricks-and-mortar store near my house closed, I place more blame on the local laws that really have eroded the appeal of the spontaneous purchase. There's no point in picking up a last-minute cigar for that trip to the restaurant or bar if I'm not allowed to light up at either place.

How are cigar stores faring where you are? Do you do any shopping there, or do you stick to buying your smokes online?

The bane of every gift-giver's holiday experience is where to store everything prior to the gift exchange, particularly if you live in a small place, or (like me) have children with an ever-growing collection of  "stuff" that expands in direct proportion to the amount of extra space available.

Cigars add a complicating factor because it takes a bit of effort yo keep them fresh. You can't just stick them in a spare closet for six weeks and break them out on Christmas Eve, like you can with a sweater or video game. There's a reason that cigar humidors exist: Quality cigars have to be cared for properly, or you might as well just grab whatever the gas station has at the last minute instead. So before you buy cigars as gifts, make sure you know where they're going to be stored.

It makes things especially easy if your gift is a cigar and humidor combo -- just put the smokes in the humidor and you're golden. You can also store the cigars in your own humidor in the days and weeks between purchase and presentation -- one of the reasons I like giving cigar samplers as gifts is that I have the humidor space for a few cigars, but not enough to store bigger quantities.

If you want to give someone a box or bundle of cigars and don't have the humidor space, consider shipping it directly to them. We do that with a lot of presents for our nieces and nephews (see: aforementioned small children whose toys and gear take up too much space for us to also keep all of the family's holiday gifts in stock), and it could not be easier. That also guarantees that a gift won't be left at home by accident, leaving a blank spot under the tree and a cigar sampler cheerfully wrapped and sitting on the steps back at the house. Not that this happened to me or anything.

Travel is a part of life for many of us, and our jobs take us around the world via planes, trains and automobiles. My brother, for example, lives in Philadelphia but spends most of his week taking the train to either New York City or Washington, often making the round trip each day for three or four days at a stretch.

Think about that the next time you're stuck in traffic on your own commute.

So one thing I'm probably getting for him this winter is the Andre Garcia 4 finger cigar case. It should be billed as the ultimate commuter accessory for cigar smokers.

The beauty of cigar cases like this one are that they both hold a day or two worth of cigars without taking up extra space. This fits easily into a jacket pocket, laptop bag or briefcase, so the cigars are always close at hand. And as you would expect from an Andre Garcia accessory, it is designed for comfort, so it won't jab against your ribcage as you jostle for position on the subway.

For whatever reason, my brother doesn't own a case like this already, meaning he either has to buy cigars on the spot or carry them lose in his laptop bag, neither of which is a great choice. This is a great a way to make sure he has cigars handy after a big meeting, and the relaxation he needs to survive another few hours on the over-stuffed Amtrak and local trains that get him home each day.

You know that anyone who sells cigars under the "One Pound Of" brand name is someone who thinks outside of the box, and who has a touch of whimsy in him. You'd probably guess that the resulting cigars are either really great or really terrible.

But if you knew they were being made under the direction of the legendary Nestor Plasencia, Sr. you'd probably guess the former, and indeed these One Pound Of cigars we sell at Thompson Cigar are 16 ounces of tobacco-y goodness.

Plasencia specializes in cigars with Cuban-seed filler tobacco, grown on his properties in both Honduras and Nicaragua. These cigars feature that quality tobacco in every stick, with a combination of long fillers and short fillers. That is why they are known as "sandwich cigars," and the name is kind of appropriate if you think about it. We buy the ingredients for a lunchtime sandwich by the pound, so why not buy our after-lunch smoke the same way we purchase meat and cheese?

One reason to consider this is that buying cigars by the pound turns out to be as good of a deal as buying your pantry staples out of the bulk bins at the supermarket -- and you don't even have to try and wrestle those coffee grounds or grains of cereal into the bag. One pound of One Pound Of cigars costs $69, and gets you a box of 30 excellent smokes. And I'm kind of proud and amazed that it took me that long to break out the "one pound of One Pound Of cigars pun.

If you're having an office social gathering or a professional networking event and want to provide something that will both provide an excellent smoke and a chortle, take a look at these Scoundrels cigars.

Scoundrels cigars are old-school in a lot of ways. They are made in the classic Cheroot style, which hearkens back to the early days of cigar making. Each is hand-made from mild Dominican tobacco, and capped off with a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper. The result is a creamy and mild smoke that anyone can appreciate it.

But the other thing to note, especially if you have a sense of humor, is the label. The bundle of Scoundrels cigars features a classic cartoon tycoon, hair slicked back, smoking a cigar with a huge "I'm-rolling-in-dough" expression on his face. It's perfect for the person, or the social occasion, that enjoys cigars and can spare an ironic chuckle as they smoke.

The Scoundrels cigars also may be the best deal we have now at Thompson Cigar -- and as you may have guessed if you've checked out the site for more than a minute, you know that's saying a lot. A bundle of 75 is on sale right now for $49, so each cigar basically costs the coins you get as change when you buy your morning coffee. For those prices, these are a great deal even for use as a holiday party centerpiece -- just make sure to snag them for the humidor afterwords if nobody breaks open the package!

We're weeks away from Christmas, and yet we've already arrived at the point where the holiday spending is out of control. Our gift list seems to explode every year, thanks to a growing cadre of nieces and nephews who can't be disappointed with just a card and a "Happy Holidays!" this December. Or so my wife says -- I'm the Scrooge who thinks they're young enough that a colorful box will be as appreciated as an expensive toy.

As the bills come in, the Discount Cigars link on Thompson Cigar is looking better and better.

That link takes you to the Cigar Outlet, where you'll find some of the best deals anywhere on the Internet ... on any product. Whether you are looking for cigars or humidors, outlet cigars in boxes or outlet cigars in bundles, you can find great items at up to 75% off the suggested retail prices.

It would be easy to say that this is a great place to find your gifts this December, and in fact that is the case. But it's also a great place to treat yourself to premium cigars at discount prices, and based on how much we're spending on toys and clothes this year, that's going to be too tempting for me to pass up this year.

Question of the Day: Where do you keep your favorite cigar accessories, at work or at home?

My favorite cigar humidor, the two-tone dark wood humidor, is at my office. It serves as a conversation-starter and icebreaker there in a way it doesn't do at home, and it's protection for cigars that I don't have to worry about.

Also, the office is where I'm more concerned about making an impression. If you're at my house and I'm offering cigars, I have the hope that you will be more impressed with the quality cigars and the company than whether you like the looks of my cigar humidor. My goal at home is to get things that will protect my premium cigars, while at work there's more of a focus on making an impression and starting conversations.

Most of my other stuff is at home, because that's where I smoke the most. My cigar lighters, for example, tend to migrate to my home, because even the ones I intend to store at work wind up being carried back there in my pockets after a cigar break at lunch. Cigar cutters work the same way -- because they are so portable, they wind up where I smoke the most, which is at my house.

Of course, I keep quality cigars at both work and home. You never know when the urge and the opportunity to smoke will strike, and I like to be prepared.

Where do you keep your favorite cigars and cigar accessories?

I just got my first batch of Empress of Dominican Republic cigars, and there's a 100% chance I will be ordering more. There are a lot of reasons, starting with the fact that it's a hand-rolled Dominican cigars with a Habano wrapper that right now is on sale for $39.95 for a bundle of 16, but there is one more superficial reason.

The ash is awesome.

Call me superficial, but I love cigars where the ash hangs there until even casual passers-by are wondering how it is defying gravity. If you're the same way, this is your kind of cigar.

On a windy day a couple of nights ago, the ash still held to the end of these babies as though there were hidden magnets involved (which, as near as I can taste, there are not). I can only imagine what it is like when the weather is calm and I don't accidentally knock it off with a sudden gesture. It's a smooth smoke and enjoyable on its merits to be sure, but that's not why I can feel people staring at me when I smoke it. I know everyone wants to make sure not to miss the sight when the ash finally falls.

Given another bundle of these, I'm going to set myself a challenge: Can I make it through a whole cigar without losing any of the ash. Most experts, and all physicists, would say that's impossible. But based on my experienced with the Empress of Dominican Republic cigars so far, I'm not so sure, and at any rate I'll have a lot of fun trying.

There's an old blessing-that's-also-a-curse: "May you live in interesting times." Interesting times are full of excitement and opportunity, but also dangers and challenges. It seems to me that these are indeed interesting times to be a cigar smoker.

Social cigar smoking has gotten more popular, and we've seen the results. There are a lot more options on the market now than there were a few years ago. Because the general demographic of the cigar smoker is someone with money to spend, discount cigar manufacturers are chasing the gravy train by adding new products.

On the other hand, this can make it a lot harder to find premium cigars, because it's not like even the most well-connected firm has a way to generate a lot more premium tobacco and age it properly. As everyone may remember from high-school science, plants grow at a certain rate regardless of how desperate a smoker is for a certain leaf. Particularly when the craze seemed to be at its height a couple of years ago, there were several times when I'd go to the local steakhouse and find many of my favorites absent from the humidor. Obviously I can buy cigars online, but for single cigar purchases I find there is a lot more competition now than when I started.

Add to that the anti-smoking backlash has made smoking more difficult, and there's never a dull moment for the cigar smoker these days.

I understand why some people are looking for the cheapest option to store their cigars, going with plastic humidors or trying to use Tupperware to create something capable of cigar storage on their own. It doesn't take much research on the Internet to find homemade remedies that the advocates swear can do the job as well as anything commercially available. Particularly for casual smokers this can seem like a fine option, especially if money is tight around the holidays and they don't smoke cigars enough to consider other storage solutions.

But while I am rarely judgmental, I have to say that those people are flat-out wrong.

The problem is that premium cigars become worthless if they aren't stores properly. It doesn't make any sense to me that someone would choose to spend the money on something that is truly exceptional, and then try to avoid the moderate expense of a cigar humidor to store them in. As my grandmother would say, that's penny-wise and pound foolish.

So if you are a new or infrequent cigar smoker, my biggest piece of advice is to invest in a cigar humidor. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money, it is easy to maintain, and it will help keep those prized cigars fresh until you are ready to smoke. Is that something you really want to trust to a homemade concoction with blueprints from some random website?

Everyone loves making lists. You don't have to put much effort into finding rankings of the top 10, 20 or 100 people in every category under the sun. There are even rankings of the top cigar smokers in history.

One thing that comes to mind when I read those lists are the cultural changes we've undergone as a society regarding cigars and how we think of them.

Looking at the older names on there, it's hard to picture any of them without a cigar in their hands or in their mouth. Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx, George Burns, Milton Berle, Babe Ruth, Red Auerbach ... these are historical figures we associate with cigars. They're as much a part of Churchill as his hat, and of Marx, Burns and Berle as their trademarked glasses ... all of which have also gone out of style as time passes and tastes change.
 
There aren't many modern celebrities that I see in the same way. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for sure. Rush Limbaugh, if you consider him that kind of celebrity. That's all that really comes to mind.

Whereas cigars were once associated with individuals, I think now they're more associated with characters and occasions. For example, I can't think of Gordon Gekko without a cigar, but it's not like every Michael Douglas role has him smoking those Wall Street stogies.  And the only time you see cigars and sports figures these days is during championship celebrations, or at the poker tables in Las Vegas. I see plenty of famous people smoking cigars, but they tend to be at a party where everyone is doing it. Cigars don' seem to be anyone's trademarked accessory any more (besides Arnold) as they were in the past.

I wonder sometimes that when a similar list is made in 50 years, how many of our contemporaries will be there? Maybe I'll make a list of the possibilities to help me figure it out.

Part of any great gift is how it looks, especially if it's something that is going to be opened in public. The right presentation adds a touch of class to any gift, and as my talents do not extend to gift packaging I appreciate the items that do that for me.

One gift that looks particularly classy this holiday season: The Padron 88 Sampler.

It probably shouldn't be so surprising that Padron cigars would be great at producing a cigar sampler that both looks and smokes like perfection. If you get into an argument about the best cigars on the market, Padron cigars are definitely in the conversation. Not only are they excellent, they are reliable. You can give Padron cigars as gifts without worrying about the recipient getting a bad batch -- those don't really exist here.

In the Padron 88 Sampler, you get a Padrón 2000, Padrón 3000, Padrón 4000, Padrón 5000, and Padrón 1964 Anniversary Series Exclusivo. All five are among the most highly-rated cigars available, and anyone who hasn't smoked these will get a rare treat with the sampler.

The presentation is also excellent. The Padron 88 Sampler comes in a classy box with the Padron signature and the story behind the cigars. Anyone unwrapping this package will be impressed just by the looks ... and even happier once they break out their cigar lighters to celebrate the holidays with some of the best cigars on the planet.

If you spend any amount of time perusing cigar forums, you probably have heard the phrase "cigar bomb" floated around. Fortunately, these are not the latest offerings from Al-Qaeda that hope to conquer the west through explosive cigars. Rather, they are a way of surprising and delighting someone with an unexpected package of carefully-selected cigars, usually delivered through the mail.

I'm not going to get too involved in the details of what makes the perfect cigar bomb, since these procedures are the subject and discussion of much discussion and debate on the Internet. But I will offer some basic tips that have worked for me when I've sent surprise cigars in the past.

First of all, consider how the cigars will be packaged. You can obviously enclose a humidor or cigar case to make things easy, but you don't necessarily have to do that either (and in fact, I rarely do). If you're enclosing cigar tubes or cigars with the cellophane wrapping still on, place them in plastic bags for additional protection. Any cigar that is not in cellophane or a tube should be placed in its own individual bag. Complete the package with enough filler material (Styrofoam peanuts, rolled-up newspaper, or whatever else floats your boat), and don't be skimpy on the tape. You want to make the box as sealed as possible to keep out the dust and minimize the danger posed by the elements.

It's also a good idea to send the packages with a delivery confirmation slip, so you know they got there. I'm a mean person and make my recipients sign for it, even if that may require a trip to the post office, because I have a nightmare of my box being left out in a thunderstorm and being ruined.

As to the question of whether to sign your work or remain anonymous ... well, I leave that up to you.

It's no secret that more and more places are prohibiting smoking, or allowing it only in small areas that make it much less fun (I'll pass on the airport smoking lounge, thanks). For the most part, I've been OK with it, though I do miss the after-dinner cigars in restaurants.

Here's what I miss the most, though: Smoking cigars baseball games.

I love going to baseball games a lot more than I enjoy watching the games on TV. It's one of those sports that you need to see the whole field to appreciate, and it's also a great game to see with friends or take children to. The fathers-and-sons baseball tradition is a cliche at this point, but it's still got a lot of truth to it. One of my favorite experiences is taking in a game with my son (even if I have a sneaking suspicion that he's only there for the popcorn).

But in none of the numerous local stadiums located in the Washington D.C. area can I smoke a cigar, except in an out of the way smoking area. And I don't get that. I've seen the newsreels and the old black-and-white photos ... cigars have been smoked at baseball games for decades. All of our stadiums are outside. There are plenty of empty seats, because both the Orioles and the Nationals stink and don't draw a lot of fans for the midweek games. What is the problem if I light up? I should at least be able to enjoy Phillies cigars if the Philadelphia Phillies are in town, right?

Am I right? What gets you riled up?

Guinness Stout is one of my favorite beers.  I love the hearty, dark, rich and creamy taste, and while it's not something I down by the case at a tailgate party, it's a usual pick for Happy Hour or a lazy weekend lounging around the house.

When I pair that with cigars, I typically like to pair the beer with something full and flavorful. Ordering a Guinness is a commitment to relax, take my time, and enjoy the evening, and smoking a cigar has the same effect. It's not like I'm worried about the Guinness getting cold, so why should I pick a stick that puts me in a rush to finish.

Rocky Patel Maduro cigars are one option I use a lot. They have a medium body, but a rich and slightly sweet flavor accentuated by the Maduro wrapper that I always enjoy. I like this especially well when the occasion is a Happy Hour, since it's not heavy enough to take my concentration away from the conversation.

But when I travel overseas, especially somewhere that has a main language other than English, I have a personal tradition of eating dinner the first night at the first bar that I see with a "Guinness" sign in the window. That's the unofficial international signal that indicates English is spoken, pub food is served, and the TV will be turned to some sporting event that I can half-pay attention to and pass the time. In those cases, when I'm jet-lagged and by myself, I go with something like the Gurkha Master Select Maduro Toro. When I want something with a fuller flavor, like when I'm alone at the bar and looking to spend a quality jet-lagged night out on the town, that's the combination that works for me. 

Did you know that Babe Ruth used to endorse White Owl cigars?

It's true. The baseball legend and first ballot Hall-of-Famer was the biggest sports figure of his era -- think LeBron James, Tom Brady and Derek Jeter all rolled into one, with the added bonus of an outsized personality to match his portly build. Even as his career was drawing to a close, companies clamored to get him to use their products.

Ruth was a big cigar smoker, as the photos and newsreels from the era can attest. There aren't many shots of him where he isn't chomping on cigars. He even had a cigar named after him in an endorsement deal back when he played for the Boston Red Sox, before the infamous deal in which he was sold to the Yankees. And he was never shy about making some extra money by endorsing products -- if he were an athlete today, he'd be chomping down Oreos alongside Peyton Manning, for sure. But by the end of the career, both he and his wife were featured in magazine advertisements extolling the virtues of White Owl cigars.

That brand is still available today, and you can buy them here at Thompson Cigar. If you're smoking White Owl cigars and your friends give you grief, just tell them "Babe Ruth endorsed my cigars, buddy. How about yours?" They'll have no response, and you'll be able to safely puff away.