Tommy ZMan’s Ode to the Celebratory Cigar
This past weekend the wife and I took a three and a half hour trek to spend several days in upstate New York for her cousin’s kid’s wedding. Now, packing for a two and a half day excursion is an adventure for any woman, but it’s especially challenging for my bride. Four weeks worth of clothes and vital supplies are jammed into several monolithic steamer trunks, complete with stickers from mystical places like Cairo, Venice, Morocco, and Newark. She starts prepping several days in advance with a cavalcade of items strewn across the bedroom floor, which makes getting up to take a whiz in the middle of the night like maneuvering through a mine field. “Geez Tommy, why are you having knee surgery?”… “Curling iron.”
It goes without saying that men are pretty simple minded when it comes to the fashion department, and packing can be accomplished during the course of half an episode of Pawn Stars. Okay, so I had my wedding stuff – shirt, jacket, slacks, tie, and shoes – but after that, shaving kit, underwear, socks, jeans, sneakers, several heavy metal band t-shirts, one presentable shirt for dinner, and that’s it. Okay, I lied – I brought enough cigars to make it thru several Armageddons, including a bundle of inexpensive sticks for the moochers, who don’t have the brain capacity to remember that this is a wedding. It is inevitable that I’ll always be bugged by every stogie–grubbing joker at a wedding, including several dumb-asses who will undoubtedly ask, “Are those Cubans?”
The wedding was, well… it was a wedding, I mean, I’m a freakin’ Cromag, what do you want me to say? There’s no doubt that gathering with a group of knuckle-draggers outside to celebrate with some fine cigars was the highlight of the evening for me. (Hard to even remember there was a time when you could smoke inside during a wedding.) Of course I had to listen to the wife tell me how bad I stunk the rest of the evening, but it was nothing that a few tankards of Macallan’s 12 couldn’t drown out. I enjoyed two luscious and tasty sticks, first a medium bodied Ashton Cabinet, followed by a rich, full bodied Camacho Corojo. Of course the mooches were totally grooving on the JR Alternative Montecristo #2’s (and why wouldn’t they?) as we enjoyed the camaraderie and a plethora of bulls@!tting.
Guys, I can tell you with most certainty that there is no greater pleasure in this world than celebrating an event with a good cigar. Many a wedding, bachelor party, birth, job promotion, and sporting championship has been christened with a premium aged, hand rolled cigar throughout the ages, a ritual that is no doubt becoming endangered by the Anti-smoking zealots of this world. And while many of us enjoy a nice smoke on a daily basis, there is something extra rewarding about crowning a special occasion by firing up tobacco from a Latin American country.
Unfortunately, I was not yet a cigar smoker at my own wedding, some 230 years ago (well, it seems that way), but I do remember a bunch guys lighting up after the dinner and I had the distinct feeling that I was indeed missing out on something special. Only a few years later at my brother in-law’s wedding, did I finally pop my tobacco cherry with a big ol’ Partagas #10. I swear that it took just one puff of heavenly blue smoke to realize that THIS was something pretty amazing, as I toked the baseball bat sized son of a bitch to the fingernail. From that day forward I was hooked like a bluegill on an earthworm, and some seventeen years later, I sit with a laptop at the edge of my garage, writing this JR Blog just for you (while nubbing a tasty Dominican Troya.)
Life itself is always something worth celebrating, and as you all know, a good cigar just makes it all the more special. We don’t need the joining of man and wife or the birth or a youngin’ to break out our favorite sticks to say cheers to all that we have. All we need is a hand rolled treat, a source of fire, and a place to rest our weary culos. Damn, people, I’ll raise my ash to that.
Tommy Z . JR Cigars Blog With the Zman
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It’s a closeout!! 50% the MSRP off boxes of 10 of La Escepcion Series VI Closeout
We’re closing out a brand that was crafted by some of the greatest cigar makers in the world at the famed, gone-but-not-forgotten Villazon factory. Meticulously blended by Frank Llaneza, supervised by Estelo Padrón, and rolled under the direction of Manuel Zavala, the La Escepción Series VI features a deep golden Ecuador Sumatra wrapper and is a great medium to full bodied smoke with enjoyable flavors of earth and spice. These beauties are truly limited, as only 150,000 were made.
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