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Articles tagged: "cigar humidors"

1: Cigars In Brazil: An Uncertain Future?

Those who know their cigars well also, by that same token, know Brazil - albeit as a source of great tobacco rather than as a top cigar-producing nation. Brazilian tobacco, mainly produced in the country 's temperate northeastern and southern regions, turns up in such world-class cigars as Carlos Torano 's Toro, but the country 's cigar producers themselves haven't always gotten the same respect.

2: Writers (And Their Books!) For Cigar Lovers

In his essay "Sifting the Ashes," the writer Jonathan Franzen has the following to say about the smoking habit he struggles to quit: "[W]hen you're smoking, you're acutely present to yourself: you step outside the unconscious forward rush of life."

3: Father 's Day Cigars: A Great Gift Idea

We hand them out during bachelor parties. We give them to new fathers. We hand them out to potential business partners and employees ("Sit down. Have a cigar.").

4: It 's A Cigar World After All

Though the first country many of us think of when it comes to great cigars is, of course, Cuba, the fact is that great tobacco, skilled rollers and serious craftsmanship can be found all over the world.

5: Cigars and The History of Bachelor Parties

As with most marriage customs, it 's hard to pin down exactly when and how the bachelor party developed. Some writers compare them to Viking funerals - just as those ancient warriors robustly celebrated the life of a fallen comrade, sending him off to Valhalla with great gusto, an engaged man 's single friends arrange a lusty sendoff for that man 's adolescence, his years as a carefree bachelor.

6: What Drinks Go Best With Cigars

The signs are everywhere: more and more Americans are interested again in the idea of using their homes to entertain friends and associates.

7: What To Serve With Cigars

The signs are everywhere: America is, increasingly, a taste-conscious country. After decades of fast food, people are talking about the "slow-food" movement. Magazines like Gourmet, Food and Martha Stewart Living appeal to more and more peoples' desire to eat well, not just copiously.

8: Alpine Skiing: A Sport For The Bold

Downhill skiing requires a combination of athleticism, leisure, privilege, and the devil-may-care attitude that allows participants to enjoy the thrill of, essentially, falling down a steep snow-covered mountain, over and over again. It 's not a sport for the faint at heart.

9: A Contemplative Person 's Recreation: Fishing

For Americans in landlocked areas, it may be easy to forget how central fishing is to the world 's economies and cultures. So feast on this whopper of a statistic: two hundred million people owe their jobs (directly or indirectly) to fisheries.

10: Where Do All The Cigar Aficionados and Tobacco Smokers Live?

For the cigar industry, the past fifteen years has been the best of times - and the worst of times. On the one hand, the 1990s saw the renaissance of cigar smoking in the United States after decades in which competition from cigars, an aging customer base of cigar aficionados, and lack of interest in cigars among younger smokers all took their toll on the industry.

11: Cigars: A Creative Wedding Gift

We hand out cigars during bachelor parties, of course - in fact, it may be hard to imagine the tradition without one. Ditto bachelorette parties, with their air of carnivale and tit-for-tat debauchery. As for the birth of newborns, the practice of lighting up a stogy to celebrate a new arrival has been firmly entrenched by the centuries.

12: How To Plan A Smoke-Friendly Trip

From one perspective, the dramatic rebound of premium cigars couldn't have come at a better time. After decades of competition from cigarettes, the gradual deterioration (through age) of its customer base, and decreased consumer interest in tobacco products generally, the sudden early-nineteen-nineties resurgence of interest in premium cigars was instrumental in keeping the industry alive.

13: A Cigar Sampler Party: A Great Party Idea

For those who do a lot of entertaining, it 's hard to come up with new party themes. But the recent popularity of cigars offers a great creative party idea for stressed-out would-be party hosts.

14: How To Tell A Real Cuban Cigar From The Fakers

Perhaps it 's that revolutionary history. Perhaps it 's the cultural memories of Ernest Hemingway with a lit stogie, contemplating Havana.

15: Plays And Movies For Cigar Lovers

Since so many artists, writers, and other creative folks have been cigar smokers, it 's perhaps no surprise that some wonderful - as well as not-so-wonderful - films and plays center on the world of cigars. Some of these works are already well-known, while others might require a little help reaching their audiences.

16: Novelists And Cigars: A Long-Running Romance

Like coffee, alcohol and other, somewhat more illicit pleasures, cigars have a longtime fascination for certain kinds of creative folks. Perhaps this is especially true of novelists, whose work compels them to sit staring at a page for hours a day, typing, looking for any small pleasure to momentarily enliven their bored senses.

17: History And Popularity Of Cigars

Who smoked the first cigar We'll never know, of course, but archeological finds suggest an early date indeed

18: Tips For Novices On How To Smoke Cigars

Many novice smokers have embarrassed themselves trying to smoke a cigar with the same frantic, huff-and-puff energy that goes into cigarette smoking But cigars aren't cigarettes, any more than cheap beer is fine wine, and just as you'd never guzzle a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, you shouldn't just inhale a cigar

19: The History (And Value) Of Cigar Bands

For many cigar smokers, the small paper band encircling their stogy is just a piece of trash, to be discarded along with the shrinkwrap around the box But for others that cigar band is a bit of history - a collectible that adds immeasurably to the romance and mystique of smoking

20: How Do Cigars Get Rated?

The cigar ratings supplied by publications like Cigar Magazine and Cigar Aficionado form an important part of the modern cigar industry For cigar smokers, these ratings provide guidance in a crowded market

21: Around The World In Three Tobaccos

Many of us live, and think, as if "nature" and "culture" were separate things, kept apart by a porous but clear boundary. In fact, it 's usually hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

22: How To Smoke Premium Cigars: Deciding Where To Start

For the past fifteen years or so, the market for this once-nearly-moribund luxury has been on an impressive rebound. From its height in the 1850s - when Cuba alone exported 356.6 million cigars - until the early 1990s, the cigar market had badly declined, falling victim to competition from cigarettes and then to declining American interest in smoking generally;

23: Cigar-Loving Heroes Of Television

It 's tough being a TV character. Whether you're a crime-solving supersleuth or a wacky next door neighbor, the pressures are intense - villains that refuse to be caught, friends who don't share your enthusiasm for celebrating Festivus.

24: Four Famous Fictional Cigar Smokers

Cigar smoking enjoyed an abrupt, and steep, spike in popularity during the 1990s, after years of decline. Cigar bars and shops sprang up even in midsize towns and cities, while profits experienced heady growth.

25: How To Build A Cigar Memorabilia Collection

Many cigar smokers throw out those paper bands encircling their favorite stogies on the way to smoking them. As for the boxes the cigars come in - what about them? Old cigar advertisements, humidors that no longer humidify, and other cigar-related accoutrement are often subject to the same ignoble fate.

26: Cigars 2.0: Facebook For The Cigar Lover

In a few short years, Facebook.com has become a popular social-networking web site. Its clean, attractive layout, fun games, and (comparative) privacy make the site inviting to users who don't necessarily want to spend their entire lives online - as well as to those who do.

27: Iconic Females Who Enjoyed Cigars

Who comes to mind when you hear the word "cigar" smoker If you're like too many people - most of them nonsmokers - you imagine a well-dressed male, perhaps wearing a sweater vest, someone - no matter what age - who exudes a certain personal gravity

28: Great Moments In Cigar History: The Nineteenth Century

Some businesses are more romantic than others For example, compare winemaking with toothpick-making

29: Who Are The Famous Female Cigar Smokers

During the 1990s, as cigars grew popular once again, a new generation of female cigar aficianados has continued to change our stereotypical image of cigars as a "guy thing" From the fabulous to the fictional, let 's pause and appreciate some of today 's trailblazing female cigar smokers

30: The Smoking Jacket: Old Fashioned-elegance Meets Modern Day

The smoking jacket: like the cigar itself, it 's a timeless emblem of leisure, idleness, "the good life" First widely worn in England during the Victorian period, the smoking jacket has undergone a bit of a resurgence in recent years, as younger consumers turn to it - as they have to, again, the cigar - for a touch of old-fashioned elegance

31: Burning Down The House: How To Light A Cigar

Like any essential, simple activity, lighting a cigar has been rendered an expensive process by modern capitalism You might think a box of matches would do the trick, but why settle for little sticks of burning wood when you could be lighting your stogies with an S

32: Famous Cigar Lovers Including Groucho Marx And Mark Twain

As more and more entertainment venues close themselves off to the rich, complicated odor of cigar smoke, perhaps it 's time to remind ourselves that some of history 's great artists - writers, entertainers, musicians - were not just smokers but cigar lovers From comedians to social critics, from rockstar pianists to Christian apologists, these luminaries found the taste of cigars to be their eleventh muse

33: A Rich Variety: How To Choose Your First Premium Cigar

The rebounding of the premium-cigar market is one of the oddest business success stories of the past fifteen years. With an aging customer base, decades of competition from cigarettes and overall consumer trends indicating a decline in smoking in general, many observers had written off premium cigars as yesterday 's luxury item - until 1992, when the industry showed significant fourth-quarter growth.

34: Mixing It Up: Food And Drinks That Go Well With Cigars

Premium cigars are many peoples' idea of the ultimate inexpensive luxury item. So with more and more Americans putting more thought into their meals - as the proliferation of magazines such as Food and Wine, Cook 's Illustrated and Food,

35: The Proper Care and Feeding Of Cigars

Picture this: You're going to have dinner at the home of a famous wine collector - somebody famous for the quality and discrimination of his or her palate, perhaps a wealthy person who can afford to buy those vintages the rest of us can only dream of savoring.

36: What To Do With A Misbehaving Cigar

The best-laid plans of mice and men. Even the most careful cigar smoker - the one who only buys premium cigars, keeps them stored in a humidor at around seventy percent relative humidity, and lights them slowly and carefully, turning the cigar in the open flame to achieve an all-over even burn - sometimes winds up with a dud.

37: The Cigar Boom: What It Was (And Is)

As the 1990s dawned, few industries seemed deader than cigar sales and manufacture. From its height in the 1850s - when Cuba alone exported 356.6 million cigars - the cigar had fallen into virtual moribundity. Its market had been conquered by cheap, ubiquitous cigarettes.

38: Going, Going, Gone...Through The Roof!: Cigar Prices At Auction

Perhaps today 's multimillion-dollar cigar auction world would never have come to exist, if it hadn't been for arch anticapitalist Fidel Castro.

39: Burning Down The House: How To Light A Cigar

Like any essential, simple activity, lighting a cigar has been rendered an expensive process by modern capitalism. You might think a box of matches would do the trick, but why settle for little sticks of burning wood when you could be lighting your stogies with ...

40: Novelty Cigar Boxes: The Second Wave

From mug-shaped cigar boxes to gameboard boxes, the cigar makers of the world have shown great creativity in packaging their wares, and no period was more fertile for the cigar-box collector as that from 1878 to the early twentieth century. (All info here courtesy of the National Cigar Museum.)

41: Fine Cigars from Bahamas, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Greece

Cigars come from all over the world. Why, then, do cigar aficionados so often limit themselves to a handful (literally) of well-regarded smokes from a few highly-regarded companies or regions? Perhaps like a passionate music fan visiting the "International" section of a CD store for the first time...

42: Log Cabins And Lincoln Rear Ends: The Strange World Of Collectible Cigar Boxes

When cigar giant CAO announced a special, officially-licensed cigar commemorating the long-running TV show The Sopranos, the combination seemed to make sense. What 's less surprising than a cigar company saluting a universally-hailed TV show, whose "hero," Tony Soprano, was so often seen chomping the end of a premium cigar?

43: It 's A Small World: Tobaccos From Around The Globe

Most nonsmokers think of tobacco plants as interchangeable - if you've smoked one, you've smoked 'em all. But as anyone knows who has ever compared the taste of a premium cigar to a cheap one - or who has visited the Middle East, where an undreamt-of range of sweetly intense tobacco smells assault the tourist 's nostril - nothing could be further from the truth.

44: Great Cigars of Honduras, Italy, Mexico and Nicaragua

As we take a closer look at premium cigars from all over the world - those coming from both likely and unlikely regions - we pass on to Honduras, Italy, Mexico and Nicaragua. That 's two world-class cigar-making regions that every smoker knows about - and two regions many cigar aficionados don't.

45: Women In The Cigar Industry: Sometimes A Cigar Is Just A Smoke

Maybe it 's Victorianism. Or perhaps it 's that '30s stereotype we all still have of cigar smokers as heavyset, overcoated, wealthy men, lighting their stogies with $100 bills. Or maybe it 's even because of that folkloric Freudianism, still so influential in America, that tells us cigars are always intended to - substitute for something.