When times are hard and the cost of those cigars continues to rise just as our income levels seem to be dropping, perhaps it’s time to try something different. Perhaps it’s time to be a little adventurous see if we can’t find a decent cigar at price that really is affordable.

Of course, if you’ve had a decent income level until recently you might have become accustomed to hand-made cigars from some of the better Central and South American countries. Now however things might be getting a little tougher and maybe you’re thinking of down-grading from those hand-made cigars to something a little cheaper - perhaps a machine made cigar.

The problem with machine-made cigars is, well they’re machine made and the tobacco you’re smoking could have come from China, India or even some areas of Africa. While some of those might be nice blends and be quite enjoyable I think I’d at least like to be sure about the origin of the leaf that I’m smoking.

So before you take that dramatic a step and let the economy force you into smoking a cigar that’s made by a machine perhaps you should stop and have a look around at what’s available in the hand-made line from some countries that you might not have considered. Maybe - just maybe - it might be possible to find a cigar with a quality not far removed from Cuba that comes from a country that few people would even think of when they’re thinking of cigars.

What is the average price for a machine-made cigar in the United States these days? Well in a small industrial building about 185 miles north of Athens - that’s Athens in Greece - there are experienced cigar makers in a two-room facility turning out hand-made cigars that are retailing here in the States for about the same price as a machine-made cigar.

Not only are they hand-made but some experts in the region are claiming that the tobacco growing area in Greece, where the leaf comes from for these cigars, is very similar to the famed tobacco growing regions in Cuba. Of course you’ve got to allow for some nationalistic pride here.