Anyone who smokes cigars knows that the best type of fuel to use is butane and that some of the best lighters they can get are Zippos. They are reliable, and you can even light them in the wind, something that those cheap lighters you in the grocery store just can’t do. For years, they have been one of the lighters of choice among smokers. Recently, they came out with a brand new line of Zippo lighters called Zippo BLU. While they have many of the same characteristics of the traditional lighters, make no mistake: these are something brand new.
One of the unique things about this lighter is that the flame is pure blue and the flame height is set at the manufacturer. It lights reliably in the wind and it is easy to use. The lighter comes with an instruction manual that can tell you all about how best to use your new lighter.
One of the great benefits of these lighters is that they come with the Zippo lifetime guarantee. If you ever have trouble with your butane lighter, you will be able to find troubleshooting tips and you will be able to send it back for repair or replacement if it simply stops working. Because these lighters are so dependable, you shouldn’t ever have to worry about replacing it or getting it repaired. However, if you do, it is nice to know that the Zippo guarantee is in place.
In addition to being a great, reliable lighter, you will find that you can choose from an incredible array of styles. No matter the style and look you want, you are sure to find something that you are going to love. These are not just lighters that you use and forget about ” they are something that you are going to want to keep with you for the rest of your life.
It is important that you take good care of your lighter. When you care properly for the lighter, it can last you a lifetime. This means that you need to fill it with the proper butane fuel and replace the flints when necessary. Buying one of these lighters might mean that you the last lighter you ever need.
Dave Sabot is the owner of an online store. With expert knowledge of cigar accessories, including , Dave also owns an online store.
Part of owning a Zippo lighter is refueling it from time to time. This can be done quickly and safely with a bit of practice. This process is also a good opportunity to clean the lighter, part of ensuring proper function.
As anyone who has ever spilled it on a painted surface certainly knows, lighter fluid is an excellent solvent. The lighter fluid itself can be used to wipe away any carbon or other impurities from the lighter. Simply put a small amount on a cotton swab and clean around the workings of the lighter. For the best results, pull out the flint and clean around the wheel, around the screen and around the wick and lever. In no time, the lighter will be looking like new!
To eliminate any taste, one should either quickly exhale the first few puffs of a cigar or a pipe or not inhale the first drag of a cigarette. Most smokers who use Zippos habitually are familiar with this compromise. The reliability, durability and style of the lighters is oftentimes more than enough to compensate for this minor inconvenience. The higher quality fuels will usually be available at high-end tobacconists and lighter dealers. They cost a bit more than the discount types but offer a superior smoking experience, according to many aficionados. Lighter fluid, of course, must be handled with care.
Some individuals have moved away from liquid-fueled lighters to the high-end butane models. A Lotus lighter is among such lighters and offers a cleaner-burning, hotter flame than does lighter fluid. Still, the trademark click of a Zippo case and the timeless style of these lighters makes them perennial favorites among smokers and outdoor enthusiasts alike.
A well cared-for liquid-fueled can easily provide several generations of service. These devices are incredibly simple which is a large part of their long-lasting nature. By keeping them clean and by using high-quality fuel, one can be assured of getting their money’s worth. Remember to never substitute any other fuel for the lighter fluid called for by these lighters. This can be dangerous to both the user and the lighter itself and is certainly not safe for smoking purposes.
Dave Sabot is the owner of an online specialty store. With expert knowledge of cigar accessories, including , Dave also authors a premier blog.
Lighting a cigar is equal parts art and science. For many smokers, it is the opening act in the smoking ritual and, in many ways, one of the most enjoyable. Zippo lighters are regarded by some as a poor way to light a cigar owing to the lighter fluid imparting a chemical taste to the tobacco. Other smokers claim that this is simply not true and wouldn’t use anything else to light their stogie. The individual should always feel free to make this determination for themselves.
Lighter fluid burns with a distinctive smell. It has an oily consistency which makes it highly-prized for its being able to burn in even very windy conditions. Lighter fluid has a taste which is detectable by some individuals and not at all detectable by others. Different fluids are said to affect this characteristic, as well. Whether or not this is true is entirely up to the individual to decide. Some cigar smokers would not for a minute consider giving up their prized Zippo; others would hesitate to light a fine cigar with anything other than a wooden match or a cedar strip.
The reason Zippos remain popular for outdoor use is that they are an inherently windproof lighter. The lighter fluid used to fuel them is slow to evaporate and is thick enough that it will stick to the wick and ignite even in very windy conditions. This makes them popular with sailors and fishermen.
As is the case with everything concerning cigars, whether or not to use a Zippo is a matter of personal preference. These lighters are often heirloom items and using them is something of a ritual for some people. If one should detect an unpleasant chemical taste fouling that of their favorite cigar, the solution may be to purchase a higher-end fluid. Some fluids advertise that they give no taste to the tobacco at all and, even among very discriminating smokers, these fluids are a popular option.
Some smokers claim that they can’t taste a thing and, if one is using one of the high-quality fluids, this is likely true. If a Zippo happens to be something to which one is very attached, consider using a high-end lighter fluid to ensure the best smoking experience. It’s not only good for taste; it’s good for the lighter.
Dave Sabot is the owner of an online specialty store. With expert knowledge of cigar accessories, including , Dave also authors a premier blog.
For many of us, casino gambling and cigar smoking go together like Frank and Bing. Generations of first-time Vegas visitors have enhanced their experience via frequent applications of cigar smoke, just like those iconic Rat Packers of yesteryear with their impeccable suits, suave manner, and constantly-replenished supplies of alcohol and tobacco.
Which made it all the more surprising, for many cigar lovers, when the Nevada legislature imposed a public-smoking ban in 2006. That ban doesn’t yet apply to Las Vegas gaming floors – there is such a thing as tradition, after all. But Atlantic City recently took Nevada’s ball and ran with it: the New Jersey state legislature has instituted a smoking ban, effective October 2008, which includes the area’s famed casinos.
All of which raises the question: where can a gambling smoker still enjoy a cigar?
Well, part of the answer depends on timing. Ontario, Canada, long a major vacation destination for gamblers, also banned smoking in casinos in 2006. This decision was particularly lamented by American visitors to the area, who took advantage of the Canadian casinos’ proximity to cigar stores that sell banned-in-America Cuban cigars (though it’s technically illegal for Americans abroad to Cuban cigars). Ontario’s casinos acknowledged these smokers’ concerns, successfully petitioning the province’s legislature for permission to build special “smoking shelters.” So you can smoke cigars during your visit to an Ontario casino – just wait till you’re off the gaming floor and in the outdoor shelter.
Elsewhere in Canada, consider Edmonton, Alberta – or, actually, just west of it. Though public smoking is banned in Alberta, due to a 2006 ban, the Enoch Cree First Nation has voted to exempt its own casino from this ban. So visitors to the River Cree casino can light up.
Pennsylvania remains another possibility. Casinos fought successfully to be exempted from the statewide smoking ban passed by Governor Ed Rendell in June 2008. As of summer 2008, you can no longer smoke cigars in most Pennsylvania bars and restaurants, but you can smoke in casinos located outside Philadelphia. That leaves such places as Pittsburgh (with the Majestic Star casino slated to open in late 2008), Bethlehem (the Sands Bethworks Casino, also under construction), and a handful of other locations.
The Michigan legislature recently adjourned for the summer without deciding whether not to pass a statewide smoking ban. In the meantime, Wayne County recently passed a ban that exempts casinos. This means that the non-Native owned casinos of Detroit will continue to be able to compete with the state’s several large Native American-owned casinos, which will not be subject to any statewide ban.
Biloxi, Mississippi, remains a favorite for Southern gamblers who like to smoke, owing to its lack of a statewide smoking ban. Though some larger Mississippi cities have banned public smoking, Biloxi remains a smoke-positive place, rendering its nine casinos attractive destinations for a smoker-gambler.
South Dakota casino owners, meanwhile, are relishing the prospects created by a statewide smoking ban recently passed in neighboring Iowa. According to reports in local newspapers, casino owners in North Sioux City are hoping Iowa’s ban will drive smoking gamblers to the state’s many casinos – while they worry that South Dakota might pass a similar law in the near future. After all, half the population of the United States currently lives in an area (state, city or town) where public smoking is proscribed to at least some extent – and the popularity of such bans seems on the increase. Even Mississippi’s state legislature is considering one. So light ‘em while you’ve got ‘em – and no matter where you are, whenever you gamble, check before you light up. It’s not fun to be ejected from a casino!
provides you the opportunity to build your own sampler of the finest cigars that include cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo & Julieta, H Upmann, Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, Gurkha and many more. Choose from more than 1200 different cigars! Other cigar products include cigar humidors, cigar boxes, and cigar accessories like Zippo Lighters.
Those who know their cigars well also, by that same token, know Brazil-albeit as a source of great tobacco rather than as a top cigar-producing nation. Brazilian tobacco, mainly produced in the country’s temperate northeastern and southern regions, turns up in such world-class cigars as Carlos Torano’s Toro, but the country’s cigar producers themselves haven’t always gotten the same respect. But that may be about to change. After all, Brazilian cigars-including the Angelina, Dannemann and Dannemann, Le Cigar, Don Pepe, Dom Porfirio, and Dona Flor (named for Jorge Amado’s classic novel Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands)-have already convinced many US cigar aficionados that this country’s cigars are as good as its tobacco.
But Brazil’s own rich history-and its sure-to-be-turbulent future-make it an important place for cigar smokers to understand. How has one of the world’s important tobacco-producing nations come to be the home of one of the strongest anti-smoking movements in the Western Hemisphere? And will these two opposing tendencies continue, uneasily, to coexist? Only a prophet could say-but perhaps a brief backgrounder on this Latin American nation can provide some helpful context.
The first thing to know about Brazil is that it’s big-in resources, landmass, and people. It’s the fifth-largest country in the world, and the fifth most populous. Among the world’s pro forma democracies, it ranks fourth in population size, and it controls a powerful economy, ranking ninth in the world in purchasing power. It’s a diverse country, too, with one hundred-eighty-eight living languages, and, interestingly enough, the world’s largest confirmed reserve of uncontacted peoples-small pre-industrial tribes that, for all practical purposes, have stayed sealed off from the rest of the world. In this single nation, then, an ultramodern economy exists side-by-side with some of the world’s last refuges of pre-industrial life, and gleaming cities (Sao Paulo and Brasilia) share the same boundary with huge swaths of rainforest.
What kind of culture does such a diverse country produce? Well-a similar situation produced artistic riches for the United States, and things are hardly any different for Brazil. Consider tropicalismo, one of the country’s major artistic exports. This musical movement, spearheaded by the legendary band Os Mutantes and the singer-songwriters Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, and manic genius Tom Ze among others, fuses all the diverse musics of this country (along with a hefty dose of Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground and jazz) to create some of the best-regarded music of the 1970s. Whatever political and logistical headaches it may pose, such bursting-at-the-seams diversity is good fortune for any artist lucky enough to benefit from it.
Like many Latin American countries (and like the US), Brazil was originally the colony of an ambitious European nation-in this case, Portugal. Led by its Portuguese-born regent, Pedro I, the country won its independence in 1822. What followed was a long power struggle between Pedro (eventually replaced by his son Pedro II), various rebelling factions of the population, and the country’s economically dominant classes, who found Pedro variously useful and irksome, depending on the situation. Following the deposition of Pedro II in 1889, the country became a republic; during the twentieth century, though, Brazil fell frequently to military coups, some of them (most infamously in 1964) made possible by covert US assistance. Its current relative freedom has lasted only since 1985.
Made up of twenty-six states and a federal district (think Washington, D.C.), the country’s exports include (among others) coffee, iron ore, ethanol, textiles, shoes, and cars. With a major modernizing initiative underway-in 2007, the country’s government, under President Luis Ignacio DaSilva, dedicated three hundred billion dollars to renovating power plants, roads and ports-Brazil clearly intends to keep those exports booming. Including tobacco? Well-that’s dicier. Brazil is incredibly rich in natural resources, but that rainforest shrinks every day. The resulting controversy raises issues for tobacco farmers: only a sustainable ecology will ensure that Brazil continues to yield those fine tobacco crops, and yet some sustainability measures may threaten farmers’ short-term profits (small farmers, many of them, and small profits). It’s a difficult balance.
More threatening, perhaps, for those of us who value Brazil’s contribution to cigar culture, is the strength of its anti-smoking movement. The country has some of the toughest anti-smoking laws in the world, funnels large amounts of money into anti-tobacco campaigns, and forbids tobacco-products advertising in any form. Still, the total number of smokers grew slightly during the past decade. Some business experts forecast that the country’s tobacco industry will have to get used to a shrinking overall population of smokers, and concentrate instead on increasing brand value, making better and safer products. Cigars, designed to be used in moderation and savored, may well flourish in this environment. At any rate, the reported use of genetically-modified tobacco crops in the country’s southern region suggests that tobacco-related controversies will continue in Brazil.
provides you the opportunity to build your own sampler of the finest cigars that include cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo & Julieta, H Upmann, Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, Gurkha and many more. Choose from more than 1200 different cigars! Other cigar products include cigar humidors, cigar boxes, and cigar accessories like Zippo Lighters.
Perhaps it’s because there’s a close cultural connection between great music and smoky bars. Anyone who knows anything about jazz knows that its truly legendary improvisers – Coltrane, Bird, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie – cut their teeth playing in bars so smoky that it’s a good thing everybody was too busy improvising to need sheet music.
Or maybe it’s because both cigars and music are contemplative pleasures. A casual smoker can get a quick tobacco-fix from a cheap cigarette, just as a casual music listener can enjoy the background hum of pop songs on the car radio. But to really enjoy a great performance, or a good tobacco, sitting still and paying attention are necessary.
In any case, music and cigar smoking seem to belong together, and some of the most famous musicians are (or were) cigar devotees – just as, it turns out, one of the most famous of cigar devotees is also a musician. Avo Uvezian, the maker of Avo cigars, is also a respected classical and jazz pianist, a Julliard graduate, and even the one-time official pianist of the Shah of Iran. After a successful musical career based first in his native Middle East, and then in the contiguous United States, Uvezian moved in the 1980s to Puerto Rico, where he opened a restaurant and bar and dabbled in cigarmaking. After customers at his Puerto Rico restaurant told him how much they enjoyed some cigars he’d had rolled himself, from a blend of tobaccos he hand-picked, he opened his own Dominican Republic-based cigar factory, working with noted cigar maker Hendrik Kelner. Now his company makes three million cigars a year, and Uvezian himself still makes music – his first CD, Legacy, was released in 2004.
For another example, consider the great trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who smokes, by his own estimation, four or five cigars a day. Music allowed the Cuban-born Sandoval to rise to fame in his native Cuba – and to defect from that country in 1990, during a long stint playing concerts in Europe (he now lives in Florida). Sandoval has played the horn for Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, Gloria Estefan and Johnny Mathis, Michel Legrand and Frank Sinatra. His technically flawless playing has resulted in his being the kind of musician whose work is often known by people who couldn’t name him – he is brought in as a session musician by some of the world’s finest and best-known (see above), and he often scores movie soundtracks. As his work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Leningrad Philharmonic prove, he’s even proved able to handle the rigors of classical music as well as jazz – sometimes doing both in the same concert.
The cigar-music connection is especially strong in Cuba, known as one of the world’s cigar capitals. Both cigars and music are staples of island life (the cigar remains one of the island’s most prominent exports), and the strength of both in Cuban culture depends partly on the nimble and intelligent blending of elements from everywhere – wrappers and fillers from different parts of Latin America, rhythms and melodies from the African coast, South America, US pop, Western European classical, etc. In other words, Cuban cigarmaking and Cuban music have both survived, and flourished, by mixing and melding.
For generations, cigar rollers were entertained by the sound of paid musicians or by music from the radio. (This tradition continues even now in the Dominican Republic, where workers at the Arturo Fuente factory, among other places, are treated to the work of performing musicians.) With this tradition in place, it’s no wonder that some of Cuba’s music legends got their start as cigar-factory entertainers; and since tobacco smoking has been a part of Latin American life far longer than it has in some other places – Columbus’s sailors noted it being smoked in what is now modern Cuba in the year 1493, so there’s many more centuries of lore to draw on its psychological and emotional associations are deeper and richer, providing better material for songwriters to mine. Thus famous Cuban songwriter Beny More, himself a former entertainer for the cigar-factory workers, touches on the song in a number of his classic compositions.
provides you the opportunity to build your own sampler of the finest cigars that include cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo & Julieta, H Upmann, Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, Gurkha and many more. Choose from more than 1200 different cigars! Other cigar products include cigar humidors, cigar boxes, and cigar accessories like Zippo Lighters.
Newton’s third law puts it this way: For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. But the old ’70s soul song says it all much more colorfully: You always have to pay for the fun you’ve had.
No matter what your hobby or pet pastime, there’s always some undesirable aspect that has to be dealt with. If you’re an athlete, you may have to spend the occasional Monday morning icing a pulled muscle. Sports spectators have to deal with hard bleacher seats, cold weather, and possibly obnoxious bellowing from the guy in the next row-unless you catch the game on TV, where you just have to put up with odd camera angles. Or let’s say you like reading: Obsessive readers may end up with slight vision problems-in fact, graduate students in literature are often advised that they should expect (and be checked for) increased nearsightedness with each year of study. Too much TV can induce apathy and is positively correlated with depression and obesity (and with infomercials, a far worse fate). And most everybody enjoys video games, but if you enjoy them too much, you may-there are documented cases of this-incur a repetitive stress injury to your thumb. As for pet owners, well, let’s not even talk about all the poop-scooping that becomes part of your life.
And cigar smokers have their own result of fun to consider. Specifically, the aromatic scent of their favorite cigar may attach to unwelcome places such as clothes. In fact, back when cigar smoking was the universal habit of Victorian gentleman, many of these smokers would maintain a separate outfit to wear when smoking, which would absorb the fumes. (Thus the terms “smoking jacket” and “smoking cap,” which we still use.)
But it’s the effect of a cigar scent settling on breath that some cigar smokers may find troublesome. The considerate cigar smoker is aware of this and plans accordingly. Here are some suggestions to help you pay for the enjoyment you’ve had-without paying too much!
1) Choose good cigars. This may seem like an obvious point, but the better-made the cigar, the less chemical the odor. well-made, hand-rolled, long-filler cigars from a quality cigar outlet or online store.
2) For while you’re smoking: Drink tea, or eat. (Mild-flavored teas are most recommended; as for foodstuffs, consider dark chocolates or other simple, strong-but-not-too-strong tastes.) “Cutting” your cigar with food or drink can help absorb both the aftertaste and the effects on breath.
3) Keep some fresh parsley on hand-or even a parsley plant in your kitchen or living room, or whatever room is nearest to the place where you smoke. This herb has traditionally come recommended for its odor-killing powers.
4) Chew gum. Mint-flavored gums are recommended, the stronger the better.
5) On that note, try chewing raw mint. As with parsley, you can keep it around in its herbal form and chew it undiluted after a cigar. You can also keep strong breath mints on hand.
6) Mouth sprays, as well as mouthwashes specifically intended for cigar smokers, are available commercially, and can be purchased from cigar stores or online cigar retailers. These are highly recommended. They’re made by people who understand. Some of the anti-cigar-breath mouthwashes have the side benefit of clearing away the tar that might otherwise stain your teeth. If these mouthwashes aren’t available, a typical mouthwash and a good tooth-brushing will be a lot better than nothing.
7) To avoid breath problems the next morning after a smoke: After a smoke, never go to bed without eating something. Even if it’s just a tiny, simple snack, it “cuts” the cigar and reduces breath problems while seeming to absorb and clear away the odors in your mouth.
So, to recap: enjoy good cigars. Drink tea or eat while you smoke, or after you smoke. Brush your teeth like Mom said, and use a good mouthwash-perhaps especially a mouthwash intended for cigar smokers. And mint and thyme help too, especially for those days when you have to rush from your smoke to a work meeting or a date.
provides you the opportunity to build your own sampler of the finest cigars that include cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo & Julieta, H Upmann, Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, Gurkha and many more. Choose from more than 1200 different cigars! Other cigar products include cigar humidors, cigar boxes, and cigar accessories like Zippo Lighters.
Perhaps the movies are to blame. All those scenes where the powerful businessman or politician says to the ingenuous hero, “May I offer you a cigar,” then-without missing a beat-brandishes a gold-embossed cigar case. A case with no humidity controls. A case that is not a humidor.
Whatever the reason, many casual cigar smokers-and even fairly committed lovers of premium cigars-don’t realize how important it is to store your cigars in a humidor.
In fact, if you’re like many smokers, you’re asking yourself what a humidor is, and why you should use one. A humidor is, basically, a box that’s designed to maintain your cigars at a certain level of humidity (near seventy percent) and a proper temperature (seventy degrees or below) when you’re not, you know, smoking them.
Why exactly is that near-seventy-percent humidity figure so important? To answer this question, we have to remember what a cigar is-a set of cut, dried, cured, fermented, rolled-together leaves. When the cigar maker picked these leaves, allowed them to dry, and cured them, etc., it put those leaves on a process that ends in the death of the leaves, and the death of their flavor. In the open air, these leaves can easily dry out completely, and the cigar loses its taste. In a too-humid environment, on the other hand, they get moldy. Basically, the moment you purchase a cigar, you are in a war with the elements; your job is to keep the cigar’s flavor alive, while the elements (air, bacteria, etc.) want your cigar to be spoiled.
Humidity is your ally in that battle. The tobacco plant has evolved to thrive in an environment near seventy percent humidity-the condition in which you’ll most often find it in nature-and if you can replicate that humidity, your cigars are in good shape. The best humidors use Spanish cedar or Honduran mahogany to trap that moisture, and they have a hygrometer-a device that controls and allows you to monitor moisture levels.
Now that you know why you need one, here are some tips on the care and feeding of humidors. First of all, new humidors need to be “seasoned.” When you your humidor, before using it, wipe the interior wood with a moist cloth, then leave a small, closed container of water inside the humidor for 12 hours. After those twelve hours are up, check to see how much of the closed vial of water the humidor has “drank.” If it’s nearly empty, then repeat the process for another twenty-four hours. Repeat this process until the water stops evaporating; now the humidor is ready for your cigars!
You’ll also need to fill the hygrometer (the device controls humidity levels). Use distilled water-or a humidifying solution (the humidor should come with instructions regarding this choice). Let the excess water drip from the hygrometer into a sink, and wipe off the outside of the device. Put it in the humidor. Another option should you choose not to use a hygrometer, is a new product that many veteran keepers of the stick have turned to: Bóveda Packs. Bóveda Packs are an amazing invention. Each pack is rated for a certain humidity level, either 72%, 69% or 65%.
Simply place the correct number of Bóveda packets inside your humidor to maintain a precise relative humidity. Each Bóveda packet consists of a specially prepared saturated solution of pure water and natural salt. This saturated solution is contained within a water-vapor permeable reverse osmosis membrane. Within a closed desktop humidor Bóveda maintains a predetermined level of (RH) by releasing or absorbing purified water-vapor-as needed-through the membrane. Boveda Packs are only to be used once, they are not refillable. They become very stiff when the contents are spent. These amazing packs last around 2 months in an average humidor.
Another recommendation: don’t keep your humidor near any home appliances that tend to affect home humidity, or any places in the home where these appliances tend to be stored. These might include heaters, air conditioners, vents, fans, and windows. Keep it away, also, from sustained direct sunlight; pay attention to the way that sunlight exposure changes throughout the seasons, too, because some “safe places” in your home might be less safe during the summer, when the sun’s rays creep further in and stay longer.
And lastly, know what to do if, in spite of all your preparations, your cigars suffer an attack of tobacco beetles. This irritating species preys on tobacco and, in some cases, can bore through a humidor. First of all, remember not to let the temperature in your humidor go too high-tobacco beetles flourish at temperatures over 75 degrees. (So a tobacco-beetle infestation means you haven’t monitored that humidor carefully enough!) Take out the cigars that have been infested and keep them in your freezer for 48 hours. Refrigerate them for another day after that. Now they should be safely returnable to the humidor-which, in the meantime, should be thoroughly cleaned, checked for structural integrity, and if necessary, replaced. Spanish-cedar humidors, by the way, are slightly better for keeping these nasty beetles out in the first place.
provides you the opportunity to build your own sampler of the finest cigars that include cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo & Julieta, H Upmann, Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, Gurkha and many more. Choose from more than 1200 different cigars! Other cigar products include cigar humidors, cigar boxes, and cigar accessories like Zippo Lighters.
When, in the early 1990s, the premium cigar industry rebounded after years of stale figures and slackening consumer interest, it faced a new social climate. More and more municipalities and states had passed anti-smoking legislation throughout the eighties, and this trend only continued through the 1990s and beyond. All of which meant that many of those new smokers found themselves unable to enjoy their new hobby over a fancy restaurant meal, at the movies, at some bars, or sometimes (as in the case of the new, ultra-restrictive British smoking laws) anywhere outdoors at all.
Thankfully for smokers, cigar bars sprung up throughout the country as a way to offer smokers the chance to enjoy the rich taste of their smoke in the company of folks with similar interests. Many of the new anti-smoking laws make exceptions for establishments that cater directly to smokers – though, often, in these cases, the smoke-permitting establishments must also install air-filtration systems and various other gadgets that ensure maximum air purity (for those inside) and minimum leakage (for the non-smokers outside). Thus, cigar bars represent an important site for the new generation of smokers. Often, they’re the only place in town where a person’s love of stogies can be shared in a like-minded, social atmosphere. So it’s no wonder that cigar bars, like stogie specialty shops, clubs, and even, magazines, became an important part of the new cigar culture that blossomed during the 1990s.
The range of amenities offered varies with the bar. Some high-end bars offer for-rent humidor-lockers – such as Club Macanudo in New York – or books for , such as the two Bar and Books stores in New York City (at Hudson and at Lexington). At Azucar Cigar Lounge in Corona, California, you find plasma television sets and walk-in humidors. Many bars double as, in effect, high-end sports bars; they’re classy places in which to sit in leather furniture while watching the Knicks game.
Other cigar bars offer the same amenities and entertainment options as other kinds of bars. Burbank Bar and Grill in Burbank, California – the same “beautiful downtown Burbank” from which so many ’60s television shows broadcasted – has its own band, and another stogie bar in Glendale, California, has free appetizers. At Fumare (the Spanish word for “to smoke”) in Reno, Nevada, patrons play poker, browse books, and watch sports on the flat-screen TV. And Shelly’s Back Room, in Washington, D.C., with its location close to the heart of the nation’s governmental processes, offers a chance to eavesdrop on the corridors of power.
Other bars are actually cigar stores with substantial added-in lounges – similar to coffee-roasting foundries where coffee is also served, or breweries that offer excellent bars. For example, at The Tobacco Shop in Hartford, Connecticut, you find some hard-to-find smoke and pipe products. Signature Cigars in Rockville, Maryland, offers free coffee to smoking customers.
These establishments are traditionally male-dominated, according to stereotypes, but as with many once-well-established facts about cigar smoking, this one has been subject to some revision in the years since the mid-1990s cigar boom. Premium stogie makers noticed an uptick in the number of female cigar smokers during that period, and stars like Jennifer Garner and Demi Moore trumpeted their love of stogies on the cover of magazines such as Cigar Aficionado. In this new climate, it’s no surprise to find women frequenting cigar bars as well. Photographer Danuta Otfinowski offers, on her website, a photo essay devoted to the women who patronize New York City’s cigar bars. She writes, “Cigars have been a smoky symbol of male power for many years, but the post-feminist 90′s are witnessing the resurgence of the stogie among both men and women.”
With cigars continuing to enjoy steady growth in popularity, and those restrictive anti-smoking laws seemingly not about to go anywhere, the importance of cigar bars will likely continue to grow. But there’s nothing new about that – tobacco has had a social dimension for nearly as long as it’s been smoked. Smoking in ancient tribal societies was, after all, often a social, celebratory activity, and perhaps cigar bars recover some of that ancient camaraderie.
provides you the opportunity to build your own sampler of the finest cigars that include cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo & Julieta, H Upmann, Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, Gurkha and many more. Choose from more than 1200 different cigars! Other cigar products include cigar humidors, cigar boxes, and cigar accessories like Zippo Lighters.
Obviously, no one knows when the first fistfight took place; nor do we have much of a clue when the art of smacking folks in the face began to be codified, the rules written down, judges and evaluators brought in. But we do know that boxing seems to be an unshakeable part of human culture, celebrated by the roughest and the refined alike.
Indeed, the art of boxing challenges those terms: “rough” and “refined.” On the one hand, it’s a display of naked physical aggression, the kind of thing that we often (and rightly) hope to avert, contain, or sublimate through things like law, ethics, community norms, and diplomacy. On the other hand, the true boxer obeys a set of rules that are themselves highly refined, an honor code both written and unwritten. Boxing is not a moral free-for-all in which two Darwinian predators try to kill each other. For example, when one well-known boxer bit off the ear of an opponent in a late-90s fight, he was widely perceived to have betrayed (not exemplified) the sport.
The ritualization of the basic fistfight seems to have started fairly early in recorded history. Archaeologist E.A. Speiser (who went on to do some of the definitive scholarly work on the book of Genesis) found, in 1927, an Iraqi tablet that shows two men getting ready to duke it out – a picture that attests to a sport that already involves planned, observed, ritualized fistfighting, perhaps as long as seven thousand years ago. Ancient literary works from India and Greece, including the Hindu epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabhrata and the Greek Iliad – attest to the presence of boxing in those cultures.
The Greeks and Romans brought boxing to the level of a science, instituting rules and awarding prizes, although these were still not what we would consider civilized fights: the contests sometimes ended in death. In later Roman culture, boxing in gladiatorial contests was one of few avenues to freedom for certain slaves and criminals: if you won, you went free. (This social arrangement may remind some readers of the way that boxing in America has, at certain times, represented one of comparatively few economic opportunities for poor people of certain ethnicities – a situation that the great black writer Ralph Ellison attacks, with all the energy of a prizefighter, in the opening chapter of his 1952 novel Invisible Man.)
The violence of Greco-Roman boxing- its tendency to end with one of the two pugilists dead – caused it to be banned by 500 CE, with Theodoric the Great arguing that a sport that, literally, defaces its participants is an insult to God (whose image, according to the Christianity that Rome had by then adopted, is reflected in the human face).
Boxing survived on an underground basis, enjoying a major resurgence in eighteenth-century England. This time, various authorities tried to regulate the sport to prevent permanent injury and death. Heavyweight champ Jack Broughton introduced the practice of counting thirty after a knockout in 1743, and he also proscribed punching a person who’s down.
The Marquess of Queensbury rules, set in 1867, basically define modern boxing: it introduced the idea of three-minute rounds, mandated gloves and ten-second counts, and prohibited wrestling moves (think of the combined wrestling-and-boxing contest between Hulk Hogan and Rocky that begins Rocky III).
These changes not only kept boxers alive, they forced boxers to think strategically-boxing could no longer be simply an all-out punching contest, but a subtle psychological war largely determined by who could outthink the opponent.
For the first time, you could win by a point decision instead of a straight-up knockout. Boxing became more of a thinking person’s sport, and the great ring strategists and head-warriors of modern boxing followed: Muhammed Ali, Lennox Lewis, etc. (This intellectualization of the sport perhaps also gave rise to the love affair between twentieth-century writers and boxing: Hemingway, Norman Mailer, and Joyce Carol Oates have all written of their love for a good fight. F.X. Toole built a whole body of work on it, including the story Million Dollar Baby was based on. To cite a more recent example, writer Emily Votruba brilliantly considers women’s boxing in her essay “The Violent Season.”)
Boxing isn’t for everyone. For its violence, and for sociological dynamics that some consider questionable (see above), it remains controversial. Nevertheless, there are a few pointers everyone should probably consider:
1) Keep up your dukes. The elbows should cover your chest, and your knuckles, when not hitting your opponent, should be resting against your cheekbones (not near, but against them), where they can block a punch.
2) When throwing a punch, keep your elbow tucked in. Letting your elbow swing outward dilutes the force of the punch. You want your arm thrown out as straightforwardly as possible. As your punch comes out, twist your knuckle.
3) When hitting with your left, drop your head behind your shoulder to keep your face protected.
4) Don’t extend your arm all the way out – stop the punch when your arm is just short of full extension.
All of this is, in practice, very hard to do – and we haven’t even said anything about footwork! (Feet should be shoulder-width apart and perpendicular; only your head and shoulders, not your trunk, should be facing your opponent head-on; as you move forward, keep your weight on your back foot, and the opposite going backwards; keep a constant distance from your opponent; etc.) Nor have we said anything about double- and triple-punches or combinations. So the last rule is: practice!
provides you the opportunity to build your own sampler of the finest cigars that include cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo & Julieta, H Upmann, Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, Gurkha and many more. Choose from more than 1200 different cigars! Other cigar products include cigar humidors, cigar boxes, and cigar accessories like Zippo Lighters.