S&M News Article "Cigars"

This article was originally printed in THE S & M NEWS vol 5/#8 (August 1998)
Copyright Carter Stevens 1998 All rights reserved. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE ISN'T REALLY ABOUT BDSM, but man does not live by BDSM alone. Most of the articles on line are only marginally about the Scene. If you want to see one of our more BDSM oriented articles please click on one of the older articles listed below. Or better yet read our paper. After all this is a free site and we need to make money off our publications so the "real good" stuff we save for the paper. I'm sure you understand, but in case you don't let me put it another way. What do you expect for nothing? Thank you CS

SMOKE AND MIRRORS
By Carter Stevens

Well, actually this is about smoke and chains, but it's still the secret of magic to some. Smoking is to many people a big time fetish. There are many articles and new web sites popping up all the time about smoke and its erotic uses. Since I quit the cigarette habit about 30+ years ago and as my father died of lung cancer I haven't had much interest in the smoking fetish. However a few weeks ago a friend of mine invited me to meet him at the cigar expo at the Javits Center in NYC, since I was already going to be at the Javits Center that day anyway for 2 other shows. (Yes, the Javits Center is that big that they can hold 3 or more large trade shows there on the same day. )

Now although I don't smoke cigarettes I have been known to light up a good cigar once or twice a year, usually when I'm in Europe where smoking is still not frowned on as a vice worse than shooting dope in public, and where you can get Cuban cigars legally and without having to sell your first born into slavery to afford them. However I would not say I am really a "cigar smoker" so I was stunned to walk away from this cigar expo with enough cigars to overflow my 25 year old humidor which had contained exactly two cigars the week before (one given to me by a friend and the other a 30 year old "It's a boy" Garcia y Vega English Corona in a tube, all that was left of the box I gave away after my first son's birth. Now I have a humidor full of sweet smelling Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Dominican cigars, and even American grown cigars. All that is missing is the one thing I and every other American cigar smoker really wants, a good Cuban grown and rolled Churchill. As a result of the largess of the cigar sellers of America I have now smoked more cigars in the last weeks then I have in the last 5 years, and I can tell you that despite the claims of every single one of them that the cigar they so generously gave me for free would turn out to be "a really nice smoke" that I would "really enjoy" I have to report that although many of them did live up to these claims, none of them came within spitting distance of the illegal and highly enjoyable Monte Christo Habana Cuban my friend gave me at our Spring fling and which I smoked for not one but two evenings and enjoyed all the way down to my almost burned fingers.

Now to be fair most of these free-be cigars were designed to sell in the $5- 10 price range or lower if you find a good cigar store and the Monte Cristo is going for $65 each on the black market (Yes, you read that correctly $65 for ONE cigar). But the important thing to keep in mind as you read our comments is that by the standards that I judge a cigar by, the Monte Cristo scored a solid 100 and at BEST the best of all the others I have yet tried would score a 75.

Now I am NOT a cigar aficionado and don't pretend to be but I measure a cigar on several factors.

I. Taste. does it have a pleasant taste?

2. Mildness. Does it have a bite to it?

3. Smokability. Do the characteristics of the smoke change as you smoke the cigar down to a butt?

and most important

4. Overall reaction. Did I enjoy it as a whole when I am finished.

and in this case

5. Would I smoke another free one or would I even buy one to smoke again if I didn't have another 90 cigars to smoke thorough before the next cigar expo?

By now some of our new readers who don't know me are starting to scratch their heads and wonder what the hell does this all have to do with smoking fetishes? Well, the real truth is not much, but these cigar purveyors were kind enough to give me (an outsider) free samples of their product hoping I would mention them to our readers and smoking is a fetish and since in order to blow smoke in a person's face you have to smoke something, I thought I would rate these cigars. So starting with this issue, I (and Guido, my cigar smoking true right hand 2nd in charge) are smoking our way through my recently heavy humidor. . I can't rate them all as my brain has become dizzy from cigar smoke and there must be about a hundred different one's left but I will try to remember what we have sampled already and perhaps in a few months report on some more.

First off the cigar I haven't smoked. The one I will probably have on the top row in my humidor till I get some more so I can smoke the only one I have. The cigar from a cigar manufacturer with enough 21st century foresight to be the first cigar company to be iso 9000 rated. (For those of you not familiar with the iso quality ratings it shows brains and determination and skill for a company to go after such a rating. Even more so in an industry which rates itself on hand made product over machine made and the ultimate sales fantasy is "hand rolled on a cuban girl's thigh.") I want to smoke their sample cigar just to find out if an iso rated plant really does turn out a better cigar but I can't. Their marketing arm is (it seems) just as good as their quality control arm. As I say every American wants to know just one thing about a cigar offered "Do you have a Cuban" well now, you can tell those snobby friends and more important they can tell their snobby friends that you smoke "Q-Benz". Right, a cigar pun. There are lots of Dominican and other cigars with a variation of "cuban" in their name but I love a good pun. As I say I don't know how these cigars smoke yet but unless they are total dog shit in a wrapper I intend to keep a couple in my humidor just for the fun value of being able to say I have a couple of Q-Benz to share. However the cigar smells good and I will assume the best and give the Q-Benz a B+ unsmoked rating just for the cigar band alone.

Next comes the first cigar I smoked on the drive back from NYC. a GRAN COLOMBIA presidente sized cigar from Venezuela. (I also have the similar Nicaraguan cigar from the same company I haven't tried yet.) Now I've never smoked a Venezuelan cigar and I was interested in trying it. It was a firm natural long cut leaf and was very mild at the start. No bite at all and a firm, smooth but very dark ash that held up well even in a moving car. I really was very surprised to find I was enjoying the cigar to about the half way mark. About half way I started to feel a little bite on my tongue but it was acceptable and I enjoyed the smoke down to about the 3/4 mark at which point the cigar suddenly gave up all its trapped poisons and dumped a mouthful of foul tasting smoke into my mouth. (sort of like smoking the filter of a cigarette.)

In reaction I yelled blah! and threw the cigar out the window so I don't know if it was like that the rest of the way or I just got one bad puff. However that reaction aside I would smoke this cigar again but I would quite about the half way point and be very satisfied with the smoke and the value.

On the same trip Guido tried a Merincigar (888-301-cigar) which he found to have a bit of a bite at the beginning but which he felt settled down into a very nice and mild smoke as he went along. My only complaint toward this company was that they gave me a freebie cigar cutter which broke on the first cigar I used it on. I only hope their cigars are better quality then their freebie giveaway gifts.

Next up is a Next Generation (1-888-65-smoke) Dominican with a dark leaf wrapper (which makes it, I believe, a sumatrian). It was a full bodied, tasteful but (to me) almost too much of a bite smoke. The amazing thing about this cigar was its freshness. even after two days of sitting in the ashtray of my desk it was still firm and yet moist. I must admit to being more accustomed to the 24 hr hard as a rock break at a touch American cigars so when I picked this cigar up and relit it two days later instead of chucking it (I was curious how such a fresh cigar would taste even two days old) I was surprised to find it as fresh and mild as the first time. Still a little sharp for my taste (the darker madera cigars are just on the edge of my acceptability range anyway) but I have to say this cigar is defiantly a good smoke.Their other cigar that we test smoked also came out on top of Guido's preference list (see below)

Somehow I managed to lose the Next Generation literature (did I mention the Mexican food and Margaritas after the expo?) but You can ask for them by name as I am told they are a well known and respected company (The owner Jefferey's father Avo is a legend in the cigar business, hence the Next Generation name) and their product should be available at most cigar stores.

Skip ahead two weeks. It's Friday afternoon about 4pm and we are all burned out. The paper has been put to bed and we are ready for the weekend. Guido, Wayne, and I sit back and pick three goodies from the magic humidor. Wayne (pronounced wine) picked a 100% Cuban Seed Nicaraguan grown, hand rolled Long filler beauty called a Supreme from Carnival Havana, (212) 244-3323) and Guido and I picked two matching beauties which were unpackaged and unmarked (band less) Wayne fired his up and exclaimed it to be an excellent smoke (but he's southern and what do they know). We tried to get Wayne to articulate a bit more but having previously only sampled the pleasures of the 3 for a quarter stogies at his local Winn Dixie "Smooth" was about the best we could get out of him. Guido and I were chagrined to find that our matched pair were excellent. Chagrined because we had no idea which company they came from. They had been hand rolled AT the cigar show and although they were a trifle loose they were mild and sweet from beginning to end. I will have to find out which company was so kind as to give me two samples of their finest only to have me screw up their noble gesture by losing their name. However by the end of the day we had decided that the Friday afternoon cigar and company meeting will be a permanent fixture at Carter Stevens Presents from now on.

This next report is written through a slightly hung over headachey haze. Last night some of us went out to see a Jimmy Buffet cover band and what goes with Margaritas and music as well as a good cigar. My first after dinner cigar was a Dalaly Diamond. It was a shorter size than the Churchill and Presidentes I had been smoking (and which I have I discovered I like more than the bestselling Robusto and Coronas, more on size later). It was a nice mild smoke with very little bite but left a slight aftertaste on my tongue. Wayne's only comment on the Jimenez Dominican (718-798-7124) he smoked was "fair" which was two beers less articulate than his "smooth" critique of the week before. We decided to drop him from our critic's circle. (he can still mooch cigars but only doubles of ones that other people have reviewed already) I finished up the night (and washed down my half pitcher of Margaritas with a Nicaraguan CUPIDO. It was even milder than the Double D I had smoked earlier and smoked down to a nub with no change but started to unwrap about halfway down the cigar. It seemed to be caused by a vein in the top leaf wrap but a little margarita moistened lick cured the problem and the cigar smoked well all the rest of the length.

Like anything else you do in life, you learn about cigars as you go along. As I write this article I have learned a little more about ranking cigars by size. In Cigars like Godzilla movies size does matter. Only weeks ago when I started this article I knew only four sizes of cigar short, long, fat and thin, but as I have progressed and discovered I like my evening smoke I have learned more about the ranking of cigars. For the most part cigars are ranked by their length and fatness (remind you of something else?) also called their ring size. These are:

Petite Corona ................ 5x 42

Robusto ...................... 5x 50

Torpedo ...................... 6x 52

Corona ....................... 6x 44

Lonsdale ..................... 6 1/2x 44

Churchill .................... 7x 52

Double Corona ............. 7 1/2x 46

Presidente ................... 8 1/2x 52

The first number is in inches and is the length of the cigar, the second number is the ring size or the width of the cigar, based on 64ths of an inch (thus a 64 ring size cigar would be 1" around.. I am told there are many other sizes in between these and that come companies come up with their own special names for a certain size but this list will let you (and me) get started in sorting out all the different styles and sizes.

Now back to our perverts laboratory test reports. Week 5 and this Friday I chose an HR med-light brown Churchill 54 ring x 7 1/2" It started with no bite but a "heavier" taste. 1/4 way very consistent cooled down nicely, 1/2 way still heavy but no bite There is a slight tear in outer wrapper about 3/4 way down (started at vein in the wrapper) but no effect on smoke at all. 3/4 of the way down still smooth with no bite. Down to a stub, STILL smooth but it did get a little hot with a bite on the end of my tongue toward end which is to be expected with someone who likes long mild cigars. All in all a very nice smoke.

Guido picked a Next Generation dark brown Sumatra Dominican 44 ring. This was the most surprising cigar we had smoked up until this point. It wasn't a good start. "You need a fuckin' vacuum to draw on this cigar, it's rolled so hard." was Guido's first reaction. However it burned with a nice nutty flavor and was a smooth smoke. We both noticed a very poor burn and very crooked ash caused it would seem by a long vein in the wrapper which we felt was a damn shame because as Guido put it, "its the nicest tasting, smoothest smoke I've had in a long time." By the time he got 1/2 way down the draw had improved greatly the flavor was still good and still no bite.

By the time he got 3/4 of the way, Guido remarked that the cigar was just beginning to approach the bite of a just lit lesser cigar. and after chewing on end for 45 minutes (Guido likes to chew on his cigars, I don't) it was still firm and just barely damp. Guido took this cigar with him as he drove home that night (still chewing more than smoking as far as I was concerned) and as he reported later "smoked it down to a 'Freddie the Freeloader' stump on a toothpick" and wound up pronouncing it one of the best he had ever tasted. So although it had a rocky start The New Generation was his pick for the best of the samples so far.

This Friday, Carmen joined us and lit up a Don Augusta by El Artista hand made premium light brown Dominican long filler ( call 1-888-319-9889 for tobacco shop near you). It was a smaller sized 38 ring 6" cigar. She chose it not because it was lady like but rather because she wasn't sure she would like a cigar and didn't want to ruin one of the lovely large Churchills I was working my way through. Now Carmen doesn't smoke, except for an occasional "funny" hand rolled item filled with a strange smelling substance that isn't as far as I can tell tobacco. So we were interested in getting her reactions. Actually the first reaction was mine as the cigar itself tasted sugary when I licked the end to cut it. Carmen said that the cigar started smooth with no bite. Her reaction in general was "very mild smoking it's like a joint exhaled thorough the nose. Both Guido and I tasted a puff or two and both had the same reaction, The cigar was very very sweet almost a "dessert" cigar It tasted like it was sugar cured, and perhaps it was. 3/4 down it was still nice with no bite, not as sugary but still very smooth.

Our new art director David tried a Navarrete 5"x43 petite Carona. It pulled well with a little warmth on roof of his mouth but no bite. He described the flavor as woodsy not nutty. Being a cigarette smoker he inhaled several puffs and proclaimed them biteless.

A few days later I sit here at the computer working on this article and find myself smoking a 5"x 48 ring thin light brown sort of robusto, another Don Augusta by El Artista "hand made" a very very mild start not as sweet as Carmen's from last week. A nice start and although I don't usually like shorter cigars I smoked this one down to a stub with only a mild bite on the tongue towards the end. But I notice I'm smoking and working which is something I never do. Oh, oh, I'm hooked damn it. I'm a cigar smoker. There goes the neighborhood.

Before I close I want to extend my thanks to Mr. Micheal Martello, of Just Cigars, Inc (a cigar store here in NE PA,). He generously shared his time, his knowledge, and his love for cigars to help make this article a little less useless. Without his guidance I would have been even more of babe in the woods than I am. But we (all of us here at CSP) are learning and I promise to share more of our adventures in the land of the magic leaf in issues to come.

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