Testosterone is a wonderful thing, don’t you think? Flexing our “guyness” is something we need to do from time to time as we go through the daily grind of working, taxes, and paying bills. Camaraderie amongst other members of the male species and grunting like the apes that we are is a crucial part in the preservation of our collective psyche. Okay, thankfully we’re not gonna fling our crap at one another – I mean, evolution has brought us to a slightly higher standard – but we will congregate and do all the stereotypical things that men do when brought together in a most manly environment.

So here we go…

Take hundreds and hundreds of manly men and put them around huge barbecue pits – burgers, dogs, sausage and chicken searing over the hot coals as the air is filled with the smoke of charring animal flesh. Now tell the guys that they can have all the icy cold beer that they can wash down their eager gullets. Then give them a bag completely chock full of premium hand rolled cigars and let them know they can smoke in public to their hearts delight. Maybe bring in a couple of spectacular Playboy playmates to fraternize with for several hours. Oh yeah, motorcycles – toss a bunch of custom hogs into the mix because a man needs to be surrounded by outrageously crafted machines. Now tell the guys that they can gamble… let’s see, how about horse racing? Yeah, that’s cool right?

So let me get this all straight…

We gather several hundred guys, feed them barbecued meat, give them ample amounts of golden nectar, load them up with fine cigars, toss in a couple of centerfold gals & custom bikes, then let these boys roam the grounds like crazed primates, throwing their money down on highly trained athletic equines. Sounds like the ultimate fantasy that every upright walking male creature would kill to be a part of, right? Well, there’s no need to whack anybody to experience this kind of hedonistic day of decadence, all you needed to do was attend Meadowlands Madness that took place this past Friday night in northern New Jersey.

Don’t you remember a few weeks ago I wrote about this amazing upcoming event and I said that I don’t care where you live, it would be worth the trip to partake in the festivities? Well I was right, and if you didn’t show, well all I can say is that  there’s always next year. I could also say that you blew it big time, but don’t worry bro, I won’t rub that in your face.

You know, I’ve been associated with the good peeps at JR Cigars for quite a while now and the one thing that’s for sure is that everything they do is centered on giving the customer the best smoking experience possible. And I can tell you that without a shadow of a doubt, the Meadowlands Madness event was as fun and awesome as any cigar shindig you’ll ever attend. Everyone was in a great mood, stuffing their faces, guzzling their favorite swill, and toking the hand rolled beauties that came in everyone’s $230 value goodie bag. Can it possibly get any better? Yeah it can.

I was asked by the JR staff to pose in the winner’s circle photo after the fifth race and award the winner a trophy. So I’m standing at the finish line and here comes my two horses, one and two for the exacta paying $100! Wahoo baby! So as I’m posing with the driver and the owner, the PA announcer says, “And awarding the trophy to the winner is the Zman from JR Cigars!” Then I look at the tote board and the it says ZMAN in gigantic letters! What a friggin pisser. Thanks a ton to my good buddy, Steve Nathan! You rock, my brother.

So if you didn’t get to attend, well, hopefully we’ll do another and you’ll wise up and get your lame-ass carcass to the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Until then, this is the your gluttonous and hedonistic purveyor of manly goodness, signing off.

Tommy Z.

JR Cigars Blog with the Zman

It’s June 21^st – the longest day of the year. It means lots of daylight ‘til around 9pm, as well as the fact that half the year is almost over. How the hell is that even possible?

Well, as we all know, yesterday was the one day a year where we are officially noted as king’s of our proverbial castles, rulers of the family unit, and masters of all out manliness. It was Father’s Day, the one day where I don’t get yelled at for eating like a pig and laying around like a fat-ass, cigar sucking  sloth.

Father’s day is actually pretty special for me for a few reasons. My kids spend time with me and go out of their way to make me feel special and my wife doesn’t get on my ass for a whole 24 hours – it’s an amazing relief! I cook up a kick-ass dinner on the grill, I actually get a nap in during the day, and I have my parents over, which I’m so grateful that they’re still around.

I really did have an outstanding Father’s Day this year and it really is nice to be recognized for something that is mostly taken for granted by everyone. Even in a day and time when woman hold high positions and work every bit as hard as we do, the man still has a pressure on him that has been passed on from generation to generation, and society still looks to us to be the “rock” of the family, the bread winner, the man in charge. And with that being said, I think having a day that gives us just a little bit of credence for who we are and what we do is really kind of nice, extremely refreshing, and definitely well needed.

Okay, I’m incredibly fortunate that my dad is breathing and healthy and still enjoys his family and life in general. He and mom came over yesterday for New York Strip steaks charred up medium rare on the grill, Ceaser salad, toasted garlic bread, and icy cold Belgian Ale. Afterwards we headed to the back patio for hearty JR Ultimate maduros and a lot of strolling down the path of memory lane. I lit the torches as the sun sunk behind the oak trees as time just magically stood still for an hour or so.

I’ve always felt that I’m kind of fortunate that I have both a girl and a boy. It’s nice having experienced the best of both worlds as a dad. While I’ve enjoyed travel hockey and baseball with my son, I learned a whole new world that existed called dance, swimming, and girl scouts. Yeah, I was out of my element, but I did the good dad thing and was always there for the youngins. One day when I’m elderly and crusty with a fresh steaming loaf planted firmly in my Depends, I’ll never feel bad about my dadness because I was always there and was always an important part of my kids lives. And I’m SO HAPPY to say that my father can most certainly feel the same way.

So it’s Monday and back to the grind for so many of us, but I really feel like my mental and spiritual batteries were re-charged by the one day a year that is known as Father’s Day. And I say to my loving wife that it’s okay, you now have 364 days to yell at your lazy-ass man-pig sloth. Love you too, honey.

Enjoy the heat my peeps,

Tommy Z.

JR CIGARS BLOG with the Zman

The good people here at JR are always doing the coolest things, like in-store appearances from cigar masters and Playboy bunnies, the upcoming Meadowlands Madness horse racing barbeque (coming in ten days, June 24) and the incredibly popular JR Classic Cars and Bike nights. Well it was the hogs that were out in full-force this past Friday, as bikers and their roaring machines showed up in droves at the JR Cigars store in Whippany, NJ.

The camaraderie was unparalleled and I don’t think you’ll ever meet a nicer crowd of people anywhere. They come from all over the northeast, filling the parking lot with their two-wheeled pride and joys (and some three wheelers, too.) Motorcycles of every make, model and size line the pavement as a live rock band plays and the hotdogs and burgers char on the open grill. And of course, the luscious scent of burning premium tobacco wafts gently through the early evening air. Guys. It just doesn’t get any more festive than this.

It was a gorgeous late spring, blue-sky evening as a venerable smorgasbord of metal and chrome continued to file in. Some of the most insane custom build’s garnered the ooo’s and ah’s from the onlookers as the appreciation for ingenuity, art, and craftsmanship was mutual amongst the crowd. And I personally was just blown away by the work and detail that goes into some of these spectacular rides.

The diversity and mix of people is a thing of beauty, as dudes from every walk of life show off their wares to the attendees. Sure, there are your longhaired leather clad bas-asses who live this everyday, but there are also a good number of corporate types and weekend warriors who let their wild-sides come out to play at a gathering such as this. And of course, the biker chicks are there as well, donning the leather mini’s and tight tops with some occasional low-hanging fruit to give the boys something other to look at. I’m telling you, these people are great and if the event went until eight o’clock the next morning, almost every one of them would still be there, drinking coffee, and telling tales of their treks across the U.S. countryside.

I personally don’t ride, but my mid-life crisis side has really yearned to for the past ten years or so. There’s something very primal about a motorcycle that causes a man to grunt like and ape, longing for a ride with his buddies. The open air and open road, nothing but you and the girthy machine beneath you – I totally get it. In a sense it’s that feeling when you’re cigar smoking outside, just you and your happy stick and nothing else in the world matters at that time and place. Plus I’m big on camaraderie and motorcycle riding has got to be the ultimate in testosterone production. So when you come to JR Bike night and match the biking experience with premium hand-rolled cigars, there is literally nothing that can surpass the feeling of smoking your favorite stoag along with a V-Twin rumbling between your thighs.

Here’s the link for remaining 2010 bike & car shows at JR in Whippany, NJ…

http://www.jrwhippany.com/index.cfm?page=events_bikecarshow_2010

• All shows 6-10pm
• Grillin’ and Chillin’ outside until 8pm cooking up burgers and dogs
• Beer Specials in the bar and lounge
• Free to spectators and car/bike owners

Ride with the wind and the smoke, my brothers.

Tommy Z.

JR CIGAR BLOG with the Zman

Want to know why I like cows so much? Because they’re made of steak. I LOVE steak and I think all REAL men are carnivores to the max. Now grilled steak brings it up a bunch of notches… rib eye, NY strip, porterhouse, t-bone… yeah baby, now we’re talking. Or, you could choose to crank it up a level and do what I did yesterday.

I wanted to make my 19 year-old daughter, Nicole’s birthday special, so I took a trip to Costco and picked up a three-pound package of filet mignon. That’s one hell of a lotta meat – four humongous steaks that were just begging to hook up with Mr. Weber in my back yard. Actually, my whole family is a bunch of red-meat noshing savages, so spending the extra dough for a great meal was a no-brainer. Now I wasn’t quite done shopping as there was a recipe I always wanted to try – bacon wrapped filet mignon. We all know that EVERYTHING tastes better with bacon and why not take something kick-ass and turn it up a whole bunch of notches… right? Yep.

On the way home, while my wife was discussing side dishes, I started thinking about the delicious cigar I would choose for my post meal smoke, along with the libation of choice. Whoa… steak, booze and cigars… what will they think of next? Damn, the whole thing is a right of passage that every card -carrying Man’s Man needs to partake in, all for the sake of pumping up the testosterone levels for maximum performance (I told the misses she’d better be ready for a post dinner romp. Yeah, I can get all Neanderthal like that.)

So we get home and it’s time to prepare the kill. The steaks were so fat & huge that I cut them in half for 8 pieces, then wrapped one thick slice of bacon around all sides of each one. As for seasoning, the Food Network chefs always use minimal spices on better cuts of meat to allow the real flavors to come through. So on each side I tossed on some garlic powder, salt and pepper – that’s it… then gave it a spritz of olive oil cooking spray so it wouldn’t stick. I torqued up the grill to 500 degrees and when those bad boys hit the red-hot grates, the symphonic rapture of searing red carcass was music to my Polack ears. I knew the bacon could burn like a mother, so I only cooked each side on the direct flame for a couple of minutes, then turned off the middle burner, cooking them the rest of the way on indirect heat (about 15 to 20 minutes more) until they were a perfect medium rare.

I don’t know if I’ve made a better grilled steak in my life as the family devoured the charred bovine flesh. The meat was so juicy and tender and the bacon was crispy and smokey – a combination that satisfied the steak-a-saurus in all of us. Hard to believe that we were so stuffed to the gills that one piece of heaven was left – a piece that accompanied my eggs over easy this morning, as the gorge-fest continued.

Now I ask you, what kind of man would ingest such a fine meal without the indulgence of a rich, full-bodied, hand-rolled happy stick created in a Spanish speaking land? The choice was easy… a Punch Grand Cru #2 Maduro (1998) I had purchased from the JR luxury line of opulent smokes that don’t cost a whole lot! I paired it with a coffee and a Taylor 20 year-old tawny port. Holy crap my peeps, if that ain’t livin’ large, I don’t know what the hell else can top it!

Okay, okay, it WAS my little girl’s birthday and she made out damned nice. We sang and ate cake and I felt like a beached whale. But once the stuffed-ness resided, I reminded the wife I still had some manly duties to perform. Hey, you know what they say about testosterone – Use it or lose it!

Have a fantastic week all my pals & fans,

Tommy Z.

JR CIGAR Blog With the Zman