Chesapeake Smoke

A little background. I’ve got this tendency, in both my personal and professional lives, to grab hold of something and not let go. Some might call it obsessive-compulsive. I call it “getting on a roll.”

Women and cigars. A fun topic, one which I can probably flog to death. In my nearly ten years of retail experience in the premium tobacco business, I’ve run across very few women who truly felt at ease smoking a cigar, especially doing so in a cigar lounge. I salute you ladies.

Other women seem to fall into three categories — those who sit down for a smoke with their significant others, those who make all sort of ludicrous faces and noises when in a cigar shop (who then promptly go out and inhale a couple Marlboro Reds in rapid succession), and those who pleasantly, but uncomfortably, dart into a cigar shop to grab a quick birthday or Christmas gift, then hurriedly depart.

I realize the danger of creating taxonomies like this … someone will always come along and suggest yet another category to add, or propose a new way to slice and dice the topic. Feel free, folks, I welcome the input.

A charming lady who read earlier posts in this blog broached the subject of “girlie cigars” with me earlier this evening. I think she enjoyed yanking my chain, knowing the reaction she’d get after reading my cantankerous rant.

But she challenged me to go beyond the rant. If women shouldn’t just smoke artificially-flavored short-filler crap, what would I recommend? What befits a normally assertive woman, particularly one who only occasionally enjoys a cigar?

Anyone who visits cigar shops on a fairly regular basis knows that, once you get past Davidoff (which we don’t carry) or the mass-market Macanudo and Ashton, there’s not a whole lot available in the way of mild smokes. All the big brands seem to be continuing the trend to fuller-bodied cigars; witness Rocky Patel’s Edge or La Flor Dominicana’s LG and Double Ligero.

My two suggestions — Rocky’s Vintage 1999 Connecticut torpedo, and the Cusano 18 robusto. Both fairly mild smokes, yet full of rich flavor. Smooth, easy on the palate. The Rocky is a full-sized stick, whereas the Cusano is smaller, some might say “daintier.”

Pair it with a nice 10 year old Tawny Port, and you’re in business.

Enjoy, ladies! Come on in and fire up a stogie with the boys.

Happy Smoking!

Well, Draper’s held its annual Little Puff last Friday. The forecasts of inclement weather appeared not to have deterred the 250 or so attendees, who all paid upwards of $160 to smoke and drink in a convivial environment.

For those of you who’ve never attended, Draper’s kicked off the Little Puff as a counterbalance to Cigar Aficionado magazine’s Big Smoke, which made it to Washington DC on an irregular basis at best. Rather than having attendees wade through a smoke-filled convention center with 6,000 or so fellow cigar smokers, the Little Puff provides all the fun and camaraderie in a more intimate atmosphere. Lots of free food and drink, lots of cigars, and a charity auction.

I almost forgot the charity aspect. The Little Puff began as a fund-raiser for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Then, after 9/11, the focus of the charitable giving turned more towards victims of terrorism and their survivors. Most recently, much of the money is going to benefit the widow and daughter of a Navy SEAL from Fairfax, VA, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. Every penny of the proceeds, from the price of admission to the tons of money raked in during the auction, goes to charity.

So there we were. Jay and I started off with a couple of shots of Oban Single Malt whiskey in the ground-level bar at Charlie Palmer’s, then headed upstairs for the main event. After a brisk elevator ride to the roof, we entered the fray, Ashton tote bags in our hands, running down the lines of event sponsors: Ashton, Fuente, Bahia, Avo, Camacho, La Flor Dominicana, General Cigar … the list goes on. I spotted Roger, a colleague at work whom I’d turned on to the Puff, and he was in rare form, clearly enjoying himself. We all walked away with 20 cigars each, minus those we smoked during the night. Plus our auction winnings.

The auction was, I suspect, a bit of a disappointment to the crew from Draper’s. The bids for the items offered up didn’t seem on a par with previous years. Yeah, I know, the big $700 billion bail-out was still being thrashed around, and I suspect many attendees didn’t feel like spending TOO much money on cigars and accessories. So the bidding was lower, more restrained. But that didn’t stop me from nailing my fourth Little Puff Commemorative Namiki Vanishing Point fountain pen. Wasn’t cheap, but I was a man on a mission.

The economy might have put a damper on auction bidding, but the weather could not put a damper on the spirit of the crowd. When it rained, we huddled under the big tent. When the rain slacked up or stopped, we ventured outside in search of a cool breeze. And through it all, we smoked. I started out with a La Aurora, then moved on to smoke Tony Borhani’s offering from Bahia, a nice, flavorful figurado.

Then 10PM rolled around, and it was time to turn back into a pumpkin.