Puff Cigar Discussion Forums

spectrrr · 10-03-2008, 01:59 AM

NonSmoker’s post gave me a laugh, because I really identify with most of what he is saying. I grew up a non smoker, and would never consider smoking cigarettes. But so far I have still managed to convince myself that my cigars are not an addiction yet, so they’re “ok”

:P

How I got into cigars: my father smoked up till about 6 years ago. He was forced to give it up for medical reasons, some other things happened in life, and the humidor was largely forgotten about. I discovered the forgotten treasure about 10 months ago (by this time, dry), and began to nurse them back to health! Smoked a few, enjoyed them, and the slippery slide began...

My level of snobbery: low, but appreciatory. I grew up in the specialty & gourmet food industry, so I am no stranger to “the finer things.” I don’t like machine made cigars, and most “dirt cheap” sticks I tried from cigar.com I was not so fond of (including 2/3 of their house brand). I don’t think I can tell the difference between a $6 and a $15 stick on average, but I think I can tell the difference between a $3 stick and a $6 stick (bearing in mind we’re only talking averages here, obviously there’s bad $6 sticks and awesome $3 sticks).

What I smoke: The humidor had about 125 sticks in it. I ended up tossing about 25 of them due to irrecoverable damage and mold. That left me with a solid base to sample from… then I found Cigar.com and started ordering batches of singles to try out. (I also wanted to see what the freshness difference would be). Then I found the devil site, where the words “need” and “want” often get viciously confused in my head.....
There were a lot of Cusano’s in the humi, some I enjoyed (eXclusivo, and a few others), and some showed their price well and were not so enjoyable. There were a number of single sticks from reputable brands like Partigas, H. Uppmann, a few leftover machine made one’s that I can’t stand, a few forbidden ones (that’s all we’ll be saying on that), and 3 very special sticks which I’ll be asking you folks about later

.

Gurkahs seem to be fairly easy to get cheap these days, and I have been happy with the ones I’ve smoked. I love a cigar with thick smoke, I don’t like the cigars that produce very little smoke. Stronger’ish seems to be my preference, but not ultra strong like that of an Onyx. But I like smooth and medium also, its just got to be a very GOOD medium bodied cigar, I am after some flavor here

I am still trying to figure out just how damaged the inherited cigars became from their dry spell... but that will be a topic for a more in depth posting later, maybe tomorrow.

My crazy outlier: although I said I hate and would never smoke cigarettes... I have tried a few and like the Dijarum Black cigarettes (clove).

Demographics: 24 years old, male, graduated from college. Spent a lot of time growing up in Cambridge, MA in the gourmet food industry, and the other half of my life on a farm in Ohio.
Not yet married, but the very serious girlfriend HATES them... and I love her more than the cigars, so I don’t think I will ever slide past the level of occasional smoker (aka, far away from her – but she’s a wonderful woman in that she’ll never pressure me not to, only that she can’t smell it). I am a social smoker, so I’m always up for an area Herf or golf game as an excuse to light one up (But I’m only a novice at Golf

).

hmmm… I think that’s a pretty good start – any questions, ask away and I’ll fill in the info

-Francis