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Cigars: The Perception & the Reality by Tommy Zman

Friday, February 24th, 2012

The gods had blessed us here over the past few days in the northeast with temperatures exceedingly warmer than normal. And when the mercury moves upward, the cigars in my humidor move outward. A couple of nights ago I poured myself a glass of hearty cabernet and plopped on the front porch with a new friend of mine referred to as the JR Ultimate Bruto oscuro. Now I’ve loved the Ultimate line for as long as I can remember, but this new bomb of a cigar comes in at six inches long with a girthy 60 ring gauge, a chubby Honduran that packs a ton of seriously rich flavor. I love a dark Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper and this sumptuous smoke was just screaming out my name, “Smoke me, Zman, come on let’s do this thing, now smoke me!”

Picture 8As I stared at my leafy pal all ready to cut and light, my wife, who had snuck up behind me, said, “Are you talking to your cigar? I knew you were missing some important brain functions over the years, but now you’re talking to your cigars?

“”I always talk to my cigars,” I said in all truthfulness. “People talk to their plants and their pets, and I just happen to converse with the leaves I love.”

“ Converse?” she asked with one eyebrow fully raised, you know that look you get when someone is ready to hit the speed dial number for the insane asylum that they pre-programmed into the phone for just such an occasion. “You mean they talk back to you?

crazy_person_warning_mousepad-p144468674304630971z8xsj_400Whatta ya mean, do they talk back to me, I thought in my smoky brain as she shook her head with full intent on calling that number. Well, of course they talk to me, but at the risk of the local funny farm van showing up at the door, I played it on the cool side.

“Well, of course they don’t actually speak,” I assured her with the hopes she couldn’t tell that I was lying, I mean what cigar lover doesn’t hear their stogies talk to them? “What I meant is that their very essence is what speaks to me. All cigars are different and each one gives off its own wondrous and unique quality and personality.”

With a kind of glazed over stare on her face, it was as if Mrs. Z was dealing with a deranged human, and it’s hard to argue the fact that sometimes, I am indeed a bit “out there.”

“I’ll never understand the attraction,” she said with innocence and honesty. “You take a bunch of dried rolled up leaves, light them on fire, then suck hot smoke from one end until your clothes stink and let’s not even talk about your breath.

photoI guess for an outsider looking in, that is what it looks like, but you can bring anything down to the lowest common denominator if you want to. What is a juicy cheeseburger really but a ground up hunk of bovine carcass? While it is more than just a matter of perception, many who have never smoked a premium hand rolled cigar do look upon it as a disease-ridden, stanky old burning weed. And really, we brothers and sisters of the leaf don’t give a damn what people think of our precious sticks of joy, as long as they show some tolerance and respect for the pastime we love and hold so dearly. But the problem is that so many don’t – they look down upon us as low class pariah, when only a little more than a century ago only the rich and the aristocratic smoked fine cigars as it was considered an act of sophistication. Yes, Mr. Dylan, the times they are a changing.

Lucky for me, my wife wanted no part of smelling my putrid stink stick, um, I mean the sweet scent of my beefy Honduran treasure, as she went back into the house, leaving a call to the nut-hut 8oo number for another day. And I was left alone talking to my dark brown burning buddy once more, assuring my smoldering friend that I would indeed show him (her?) every ounce of my love and affection for the next 45 minutes of our lives together…

…Yeah… maybe somebody aught to call that number.

Til next week, stay smoky my friends,

TZ.Sig.2

JR Cigars Blog with the Zman

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