BIG GAME FOOD & CIGARS for SUPER SUNDAY by Tommy Zman
Super Bowl 46… Giants vs. Patriots…. A rematch of the 2008 game that saw the New York football team pull a stunning upset over the favored Brady Bunch. Now with all the non-stop hoopla going on for this year’s match up, I’ve been thinking that it’s kind of funny how when used in advertising, no one is allowed to say the heavily trademarked term: Super Bowl. You’ll see everyone and their cousin on TV, Radio, Newspaper, and the web, publicly referring to it as the BIG 
GAME. But I guess you have to admit that it truly is BIG – a game that has turned Super Bowl Sunday into the second largest food consumption gathering in the United States, surpassing Christmas and not far behind Thanksgiving.
I think we all eat just as much on Super Bowl Sunday as we do on Thanksgiving, but there’s no doubt that the football parties produce more acid reflux than several major holidays combined. In other words – we eat a massive amount of horrible fattening crap that tastes oh so good, but has one hell of an after burner affect. Antacid sales jump 20% the day after the game, but hey, we don’t really want to think about that when there’s wings, subs, pizza, chili, chips, dips, sodie pop and ice cold beer about to be consumed!
Wanna see some staggering food numbers predicted for the game? This’ll put a little gas in your rear tank…
• 1.2 billion Chicken Wings
• 50 million cases of beer, 325 million gallons (An increase in the sales of beer compared to the average daily total = $11.8 million)
• 15,000 Tons of Chips (lining up each and every chip would produce a trail of almost 293,000 miles – not quite 1.5 times the distance to the moon, or 6 feet per American)
• 8 million pounds of popcorn
• 12 million pounds of avacados (That’s enough to cover Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium end zone to end zone in more than 27.5 feet in avocados.)
• 2.5 million pounds of nuts
• $237.2 million spent on soft drinks at grocery stores during Super Bowl week
• 30% increase in sales of processed-cheese loaves during Super Bowl week
• 30% increase in sales of frozen shrimp
• Frozen Pizza is the top Super Bowl seller at grocery stores
• Fans at the game will eat 5,000 pounds of hotdogs. (If you laid those hotdogs end-to-end, they would stretch more than 5 miles.)
• Average number of attendees for a Super Bowl party: 17
• Average number of calories consumed during the Super Bowl: 1,200 calories per person
I don’t know about you guys, but I just popped a few Pepcid AC just reading that list!
While I don’t have any actual hard data, I have to believe that premium hand rolled cigars are smoked in record quantities each and every Super Bowl Sunday. While I always choose a pre-game cigar, one for halftime (I’m sure as hell not watching Madonna), and one for post game, with my favorite New York Giants playing, the post game smoke could either be celebratory or… well, I don’t want to think about that one. So for pre-game, we’ll go medium bodied, and I suggest a delicious old favorite, the Arturo Fuente Hemmingway. For halftime, a shorty is in order and the NUB Habano is the pick. And for post game, you want a full-bodied beast to cut through all the calories and spice, so I say go with a kick-ash Joya de Nicaragua Antano, a cigar that is not for the faint of heart, but perfect for celebrating a box-pool victory.
Okay, peeps… you want my prediction? No, you say? Well, too bad… you’re gettin’ it anyway…
NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS 34 . NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS 20
Mr. Brady, say hello to my little friends, Pierre Paul, Osi & Tuck. Oh yeah, and don’t forget Mr. Manning, Nicks, & Cruz. Sorry my New England Brothers of the Leaf, we can be bestest buddies again… after the game.
That’s it for this week, my peeps, hope yours is equally as SUPER!
JR Cigars Blog with the Zman
