Pretty good chances are that if you read this blog, you are a lover of the luscious leaf. With deference to sir Quentin Tarantino. We ARE Inglorious Cigar Loving Bastids. Cigars make our lives better. The ritual of cutting, lighting, and then drawing in that first heavenly puff of smoke is one that we relish with all our hearts and souls. Dare I say that we would kill for our cigars.

A good cigar is truly like a friend who accompanies us on long car rides, a day on the links, or on the back deck when the stars litter the sky. It’s an understatement to say that we ‘love’ our cigars. So, I started thinking about the cigars I personally love – you know, my faves. My mind was all over the place as there are so many sticks I smoke. I tried to come up with a list of my top ten favorite smokes and it was too hard. So then I thought, what if I had to choose just five to smoke the rest of my days. Ooooo… now that’s getting more serous and required some intense thought. But then my brain went one bizarre step further. What if the smoke Nazis gained control and we Inglorious Bastids were only allowed to choose one cigar to make our regular everyday stogie. What would it be?

Wow, my brain started to hurt. A cloud of smoke began to seep from my ears as confusion riddled my soul. I have to pick one cigar to spend the rest of my life with. Holy crap, this is just like marriage – you have to be eternally faithful and you still don’t get laid. With my mental faculties in a quandary, I decided to seek the help of some friends. I turned to the cigar forum I frequent (or is it ‘freak’quent) on the internet for some support. I’ve been a member of Herfersparadise for a little over three years and it has become a fixture in my daily regimen. There are a lot of knowledgeable cigartophiles there – some good dudes, some weird ones (yours truly falls into that category) and a few grating assholes, just like any internet forum. (No I Am Not referring to any of my friends who post both here and there.)

So I posted my smoke-filled dilemma in a new thread in the cigars part of the forum and it read like so…

The smoke Nazi’s have cut us off at the balls and every smoker gets to choose one cigar to smoke the rest of their life. Just one to spend the rest of your days with. Price is NOT the object here, only choice. What will it be?

Now I really had no idea what the response would be, but I knew the Herfer’s faithful would enjoy lending their two cents into the kitty. Right off the bat, my bud, Kevin says, “I’ll choose none. If Tommys 8 th grade stupid question ever comes true I will be dead,” which cracked me up, and it was cool because the answers were coming in fast and furious.

And what was amazing is that about 35 answers in, we had 35 different cigars listed and that really surprised me. Finally a few repeats made the list, but what truly surprised me the most was that half of the answers that the guys listed as the ONE cigar they would choose… was a Cuban made smoke. I really didn’t expect that. A lot of guys seem to scoff at Habanas, stating quite emphatically that Nicaragua, Honduras, and the DR has surpassed the Isle de Castro in quality. But after close to 100 posts on the thread and 1,700 views, there are still those who feel that a ‘real-deal’ Havana is still the only way to go.

The top picks: Montecristo # 2 and 4. Siglo VI is popular as well as the Partagas Serie D Robusto. What’s so interesting about the “legal” cigars is that the choices were spread out across the board. And I personally think that’s a great sign for the industry, meaning that a lot of manufacturers are making a vast array of great smokes..

Oh yeah… my personal pick? Papayos? Optimos? Grape Philly Blunts? Well, since price is NO object, I choose to make the everyday smoke for the rest of my life… the 1926 Pardon Anniversario. (Sorry to disappoint those of you who refer to me as the JR whore. I mean I am, but variety is the spice of life, as they say… whoever ‘they’ are.) I think this cigar is so consistently smooth, well rolled, and the flavor profile is amazing.

On a final note, some found it impossible to narrow it down to ONE brand. One guy even said he’d rather give up smoking if he was forced to stick with the same cigar choice forever. To me, that’s completely insane and irrational, but probably every bit as my proposed question.

Okay, I didn’t solve world hunger or our grotesque economical problems, but I did offer up a mind numbing proposition for you to ponder.

Yes, we are the Inglorious Cigar Loving Bastids and the Smoke Nazis will feel our wrath… and smell.

Tommy Z.

JR Cigars Blog With the Zman

Since John F. Kennedy signed the Cuban Embargo in 1962, nine straight U.S. presidents have come and gone, with so much talk of lifting it. Now we have the most liberal president in the history of mankind, and the question isn’t “if” the embargo will end, the only question is “when.” Okay, this is only my personal opinion, but it sure seems to be a popular opinion of many.

Many a cigar fan wants this embargo that is approaching half a century to end for selfish reasons. If you love your smokes from Havana, then you are excited about the availability of real-deal Monte #2’s, Hoyo DC’s, Bolivar Gigantes, and Partagas Serie D Robustos becoming a reality at a cigar shop near you.

If you are a pro-Castro Cuban, you want this to come to an end so you can visit your homeland and family again. If you are anti-Castro and your family came over in the Mariel Boat Lifts, then you are for the embargo and want the U.S. government to continue to squeeze Fidel’s cajone’s until he is as dead as a doornail.

As you can see, there’s a lot of mixed sentiment here. Now some of you reading don’t give a rat’s ash about Cuban smokes and are happy as a clam with your sticks from Honduras, Nicaragua, and the DR. But some of us really do enjoy the hell out of the cigars named two paragraphs above and would love to have them readily available to enjoy. But the question is: At what cost?

There are many that believe the cost of Cuban made sticks will double because immediate demand will be off the charts. And don’t kid yourself, demand for legitimate Habanos products will be utterly insane when they are readily available in America.

“There’s no way you can serve Europe and the US if Cuban cigars became big in the US,” Swedish Match Chief Financial Officer, Lars Dahlgren, who declined to say when the ban might be lifted.  “If consumers would demand the same quality of cigars, prices would skyrocket.”

It’s hard to say what pricing will be, but I personally think it will cause a kind of mini-boom here in the U.S. But the smoke Nazi’s will see this coming and raise taxes higher and fight to stop the Cuban invasion, but it won’t matter. People will want their Habanas and that’s gonna piss off a lot of Hidebeast and Pelosi supporters.

Now the interesting thing is, if prices go thru the roof in the U.S., that will again cause people to purchase them via mail order from outside of the country, but now it will be LEGAL to do so. So, to combat this, I’m sure the government will place some insane tariff on imported Cuban smokes and that’ll take care of that brief loophole.

At first, most people will go ga-ga and buy Cuban smokes at a crazy clip and smokes from the other countries will take an initial hit. But if the prices for Cubanos are ridiculously high, within a couple of months we’ll all go back to our favorite domesticated brands.

I think the thing that hits me the most is that it will no longer be considered an act of treason to purchase a real-deal stick from the Island 90 miles south of Miami. Travel will open up to Castroland and they are just going to love the U.S. dollar down there. And, you’ll see a boatload (poor choice of words?) of Cuban players in Major League Baseball. Wow, almost 50 years of talking about this and it looks as if it’s really going to happen in our lifetime. I remember Lew Rothman telling me that when the embargo was first put in place, all of the cigar companies completely believed that it wouldn’t last more than a few weeks. Well, a few weeks became a few months and it started a frenzy in the industry.

Well, I say get ready for a new frenzy in the industry, as handmade premium Cuban cigars are about to make their long awaited U.S. return…

… I think.

Tommy Z

JR Cigars Blog With the Zman

So I’m walking through the streets of Little Italy, in downtown New York, enjoying the hell out of the dark, rich, El Rey Del Mundo that I just purchased at a local favorite shop. The temperature is 30 degrees and the Manhattan air is cold and crisp, but the coffee in my other hand keeps me warm as I stroll down age-old Mulberry Street. A passer by says, “Bro, that cigar smells amazing.” I thanked the man, taking his compliment as a personal one.

I stopped to read a menu board outside one of the many restaurants as the manager declared, “That cigar, she smells a so sweet.” Wow, I know Italians are passionate, but to give my stogie a gender was a wonderful gesture. It felt good. “I” felt good. I felt accepted and alive as notes of java and woody tobacco laced my palate. This is New York City, a place where compliments and warm wishes aren’t handed out on a silver platter. While New Yorkers are genuinely good people, you kind of have to “earn” their approval and it seemed my smoky Honduran treasure helped me to do just that.

I walked a bit further then stopped and stared in the bakery window as the pastry chef filled the cannolis with great patience and expertise. I took a long draw on the El Rey, leaned my head back and released a fragrant waft of swirling blue smoke into the heavens. I felt like I was in a movie. It was a happy feeling – a relaxed feeling – almost one of nirvana. And then there came that horrifying sound of a phonograph needle being dragged across a vinyl record album…

Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipppppppppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…

“That’s disgusting,” blurted the old crow as she stood behind me on the sidewalk.

I slowly turned my head in pure Di Nero fashion. “Are you talkin’ to me?

She was a haggered old bat of woman – a gnarly old face and hunched over like she carried pianos on her back for a living. “That cigar stinks and I don’t need to smell it.”

Sometimes you fight back, but sometimes you are too stunned to strike. I was frozen like a lawn jockey, cigar in one hand and coffee in the other. All I could do was cock my head to the side and squint my eyes like I had just seen the face of Marley’s ghost in the door-knocker.

“Don’t give me that bullshit look,” she blurted in her raspy Mr. Potter voice. “The whole goddamned country is dyin’ of cansa and you gotta act like the shroud of death.”

I wish I could see the look on my own face – that classic “WTF is your major malfunction” look. Now I’ve had plenty of people give me shit about my cigars in the past, but here I am in the open air, in the middle of a street of a humongous world renowned metropolis – surrounded by enough bus, car, and furnace fumes to grow a tumor the size of the Biggest Loser – and this creature has me playing Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black.

But really guys, what do you do? Do you make a scene? Do you yell back… argue… defend yourself?” Put yourself in that position and think about it. Am I going to yell at a very old woman as nearby smoke Nazis chime in and use me for a Polish piñata? Am I going to lose my cool and make it look like “I’m” the bad guy in this situation? My brain was misfiring as a proper response was not coming forth.

“You people should be castrated and put on your own island!” she snapped as saliva sprayed from her flapping gums.

YOU PEOPLE? Did she just call me “YOU PEOPLE?” I’ve never been called you people before and it was a bizarre feeling. The entire situation was as surreal as it gets as several people gathered to see why this rancid old crab was ranting.

You know, normally I’d give the shpeal about being outside in the open air, or it’s a big city, or there’s nowhere left to smoke any more, yada, yada, yada. But I didn’t. For some reason I just let this wretched shrew have her moment in the sun. For three whole minutes, she was the champion of justice and her verbal flogging was just and most righteous.

Then… it happened…

“Just stand there with yer cansa-stick… ya big pussy,” she said in all of her old lady bravado.

She called me a pussy. First I’m “You People” and them I’m a “pussy.” All I was doing was minding my own business, walking though lovely Little Italy, enjoying my time alone with a good cigar. But now… I was no longer stunned. I was goddamned mad. I dropped my coffee and as the java splashed the pavement, my hand curled up into a fist. This rancid sow actually then yelled out, “Whatta ya gonna do, hit an old woman?”

With my right hand, I slowly brought my cigar to my lips and drew in the largest puff of smoke I could possible muster, then cocked my head while raising my eyebrows. For a solid ten seconds, I stared dead into the eyes of the bullying bitch, as she awaited my response – and so I gave it to her. I leaned into her face, nose to nose, and let forth the thickest puff of billowing Honduran smoke this world has ever known.

In plain English, the broad lost her marbles. She stumbled, then fell backwards, ala Fred Sanford, into the brick wall of the bakery, clutching at her chest while calling out to her god. She yelled out obscenities that even only I use on rare occasions, coughing and hacking up a lung as if she had encountered Death, himself.

That very moment was a triumph for cigar smokers everywhere. And, as I looked around, a small crowd of people clapped and laughed as the Chinese dude selling scarves and gloves actually said, “Good for you, Mr… Dat bitch focking crazy!”

Yeah, she was focking crazy, all right. But for a small moment in time, I was a just little bit crazier.

Smoke ‘em if ya gottem.

Tommy Z.
JR Cigar Blog With the Zman

It’s always sad when an era comes to an end. Whether it’s sports, business, or music, when greatness sings its swan song, it’s hard to even imagine life being the same. And so goes the story for the famed Villazon factory in Cofradia, Honduras. On December 11, 2009, the operation closed its doors as a cigar manufacturing facility, moving its revered brands six hours away to Danli.

Villazon, owned by General Cigars, was home to such legendary brand names as Punch, Hoyo de Monterrey, El Rey Del Mundo, and a host of JR premium lines. But like the rest of the world, the economy and imposed taxes have claimed their latest victims, and hundreds of dedicated people in that region of the Central American country are out of work, and God only knows how they’ll be able to survive.

As many of you know, in April of 2008, I spent several days at this facility, with Lew Rothman, as we were guests of then General CEO, Daniel Nunez. In less than half a week I developed an appreciation for cigars and the people who make them, like I had never known. The time, sweat, and dedication involved is fascinating, and we here in America could take an invaluable lesson from the people of this culture and their unrelenting work ethic.

The factory floor operations was run by a man named Manuel Zavala, who has thankfully been moved to Danli. I interviewed Manuel through an interpreter (a very cool and different experience) and was truly blown away by his love for tobacco, his company and his employees – of whom I’m sure he is heart broken over. The guy cared like not many bosses I have ever seen in my lifetime. The cigar making biz is a team operation, relying on many different parts to act as a whole. Manuel spent sixteen-hour days on the premises, overseeing all phases of the operation, while personally dealing one-on-one with those he felt needed the attention. The man had tears in his eyes, several times during our interview – tears of an unrelenting pride that was infectious to anyone in his presence. And let me correct myself, Manuel actually spent 24/7 on the premises, as he, his wife and children lived in a home on the compound, provided by General. Don’t see that in the U.S. of A.

After touring the plant and meeting just about everyone who worked there, my heart goes out to these wonderful people. They are all cigar people and I’m not sure how they’ll be able to recover. That area of Honduras is a headquarters for Chiquita Banana, as well as fish farming. More than half of the world’s tilapia consumption originates there, and at least that helps their fragile economy. One good thing is that the grounds in Cofradia will remain a tobacco processing and warehousing facility, which will be able to retain some of the employees, and, can be used again as a manufacturing plant if needed. One can only hope, but with the state of the industry, with its egregious taxes and Smoke Nazi shakedowns, it’s hard to imagine that a comeback will ever take place.

It is the end of an era. Villazon of Cofradia made some of the world’s legendary cigars for many decades, and within an instant, it becomes a memory of what once was – a time when a man’s right to chose a premium smoke was accepted and not looked upon as an act of immoral disgust.

So I ask you to light your next cigar in the memory of the people of Cofradia. Day in and out they gave their hearts and souls so you and I could enjoy one of the greatest passion that man has ever known. The attached photos of the plant and Manuel were all taken by yours truly. This last one is of me, Lew, and Daniel at Pat’s Steakhouse, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. (The bulletproof wearing, AK 47 carrying bodyguards were cropped from the photo.)

Long live Villazon.

Tommy Z.

JR Cigars Blog with the Zman