Cigars Versus Cigarettes

I've Got Champagne Taste On A Beer Budget


Over the past ten years I've found myself inadvertently conducting a fairly interesting social experiment, and the results are predictably surprising (as opposed to surprisingly predictable.)

My laboratories are the bars and restaurants of the world, and the control substance is tobacco, something I've only starting smoking in limited quantities in this same time period.

Fortunately I don't have the nicotine addiction gene, so I never picked up the cigarette habit back when I was in college in the 1970's and smoking a 50 cent pack of Marlboro's was cool.

Thank God I never did, what with a pack of Cigs costing nearly FOUR DOLLARS now, and the government stepping in and passing laws telling private businessmen where they can and can't let their patrons consume their addictive drug of choice.

I do, however, enjoy a nice cigar on occasion, although my tobacco habit waxes and wanes with my financial fortunes and the availability of decent Dominican or Nicaraguan products. I have a little humidor that holds a single bundle or box of Cigars, possibly a few more of the smaller ring gauge, and I've found a decent Cigar dealer that is just around the corner from me and will sell me an occasional bundle of unbranded "seconds" for a good price

What kills me is that I, a non-smoker for most of my nearly fifty years, have sat in silence in smoke filled restaurants and night clubs while three quarters of the population puffed their lives away, and now that I elect to fire up a cigar every now and then, people will walk twenty yards across a crowded room to tell me my smoke stinks.

Back in the day, when almost everyone smoked, I'd come home from a "guys night out" shooting pool with the boys and my ex-wife would make me get undressed in the garage because my clothes smelled so badly of cigarette smoke, and now I've got people holding lit cigarettes in their hand bitching at me because I'm smoking a Cigar.

Seriously, I once had a lady walk into a club down in Ft. Lauderdale where I was smoking (she was holding a cigarette) and complain to me and her girlfriends about how cigar smoke made her sick. I had just cut the end off of a TWELVE DOLLAR Davidoff Robusto and fired it up, but out of difference to my vocal co-combustors I extinguished my cigar. Then not thirty seconds later the silly bitch and her entourage decided the place was too crowded and departed to "go somewhere else."

Just Damn...

The Cigar smokers in the crowd will probably agree that smoking a Cigar that has been previously lit is never quite the same as the taste obtained burning one in a single half hour uninterrupted session.

What is it about people that not only causes them to think that one form of carcinogenic vapor and particulate matter is socially more acceptable than another, but makes them come up to a complete stranger and demand that I take my tobacco elsewhere when they puff theirs in front of me and their friends and family 24/7?

After all, I smoke good cigars, not things sold beside convenience store cash registers that smell like vanilla or fruit or a dog turd wrapped in newspaper, and I generally verify that Cigars are acceptable with the management prior to lighting a match.

The King and Prince Hotel located down here on our little island has a humidor in their bar and sells overpriced mishandled Cigars if you really want one, but...

you can't actually SMOKE Cigars inside their establishment--even before Georgia changed the law to end tobacco smoking in restaurants.

A couple of restaurants I frequented in Atlanta had the same queer policy--selling you expensive tobacco that you can't use until you get into your car or arrive home.

Like my affinity for fine vintage Port Wine, I find it interesting to learn about Cigars and their history, and I will appreciate the day when Fidel Castro dies and we finally end the fifty year embargo on Cuba so I can get a real Cuban Cigar for less than $30. (Right now I have to settle for the product of Cuban seed grown somewhere else in the Carribbean.)

I've only smoked something represented as a true Cuban Cigar twice in my life. The first time was on a dive excursion out to Walkers Cay Bahamas back in 1997, and the second time was while enjoying a desert course at the Chicago Chophouse that same year.

Both times I paid $30 for the experience, and the Chophouse threw in a little glass of 1966 vintage Fonseca Porto for an extra thirty bucks.

Thirty dollars or two dollars fifty cents, I'll be damned if I'm putting out any more Cigars for anyone but possibly Pat and my Mother, so just take your allergies and your bad attitude elsewhere.

Me and my bad habits...what can I say?