It seems that lately I am seeing a lot of cigar guys coming to the pipe side of things to give it a shot.  I think it’s a great thing too.  Many folks get into cigars or pipes and never venture from one side to the other.  I honestly believe they’re doing themselves a disservice by not at least giving the other side a shot. You see, I consider myself more of a tobacco hobbyist than a pipe smoker or a cigar smoker.  I’ve tried very nearly every type of tobacco product there is.  The only one I haven’t given a shot that I can think of is snuff.  And that’s not for any other reason than I have delicate, wimpy sinuses!  Yeah, what’s a nerd with allergies doing smoking at all?  I can smoke and not have too bad of a reaction as long as I don’t do what they call snorking or retro-haling.  Anyway, I think our time together here today is going to be about the things I’ve found about our wonderful hobby of tobacco.

As I said, I’ve given just about every form of tobacco I can think of a try.  Dipping and chewing doesn’t hold much enjoyment for me so I won’t really talk about that.  Cigarettes are just another form of nicotine delivery and don’t do much other than keep a true addiction fed.  But when you want to talk about tobacco, pipes and cigars are really a cut above any other form of tobacco.

In the beginning of my journey in the world of tobacco, I decided to give a hookah a try.  Quite frankly, I didn’t enjoy it much.  Yes there are a myriad of flavors and it’s really a smooth and cool smoke but the thing about a hookah is that it’s more of a social event than anything.  I believe that’s one of the reasons it’s become so popular with college aged people.  Well, that and the other things that can be smoked in a hookah pipe as well.  But we won’t get into that since it’s not actually tobacco.  There’s a college in my town and restaurants and bars have popped up all over that serve hookahs.  It was really a surprise when I first decided to try it and was given a menu!  The experience was fun but unless I’m in a group of people who are smoking hookahs, I don’t believe I’ll play with that form of tobacco much any more.

Well, cigars were one of the first things I tried.  I’d pick up a couple at the local shop and get together with a friend or two and try them out.  I have always enjoyed the big full flavors so naturally I went with a lot of maduros.  Once again, however, I found that cigars were more of a social thing and my enjoyment of them was somewhat limited since there was nowhere in town that you could go buy a cigar and sit down and enjoy it.  One thing that really points to the fact that cigar smoking can be a social event is that every time I would buy cigars, I had to get 3 of each so that my two best friends and I could share and compare what we were tasting.  But I found that when I was home and wanting something to relax with, a cigar just didn’t do much for me.  Of course, that was before my palate had developed some.