Although I wouldn’t touch a cigarette and don’t even like seeing other people with one, I admit to enjoying a cigar now and then. Perhaps this stems from the fact that some of my favorite men in history smoked cigars: George Burns, Groucho Marx, Henry Mencken, & Winston Churchill, to name a few. I remember my grandfather used to chew cigars; he would stick one in his mouth and sort of toy with it for an hour or so but never light it.
Unfortunately for me, the price of a decent cigar has skyrocketed. This causes my enjoyment of cigars to run headlong into my inherent cheapness. Way back when, those times when things were both simpler and less expensive, someone once complained that what this country needs is a good 5 cent cigar. I guess today one would say that what we need is a good one buck cigar, since a decent handmade stogie costs $6 and up. But what this country really needs is a good one buck dollar.
I know that some of you will react by thinking… cigars stink! It’s true that some cigars, when smoked, emit what some would regard as an unpleasant aroma. But some don’t. For instance, I happen to like Acid and Drew Estate cigars, which have a fragrant smell and sweetish taste. Then there’s the experience of entering a good cigar shop, when the mingled bouquet of all those hand-rolled unlit cigars caresses one’s nose as wonderfully as the blossom off a magnolia tree.
A good cigar, of course, may have alternate uses. George Burns once joked that the reason he always went on stage with one was because, at his age, he needed something to hold onto.