The Cherished Cheroot

"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke."

--Rudyard Kipling

To project the versed views of Victorian England's tobaccolaureate still further, a good cigar is even more than a smoke. It can be a mystical experience that comes with its own lore, legend, taboos, customs, fanatical followers and, alas, unswerving deprecators. It has been a symbol of virility and leadership; likewise, it has been damned as a phallic appendage and a pacifier for the too-quickly weaned. Nonetheless, throughout its storied past and a politically turbulent present, the cigar has spread its umber blessings in an infinite variety of satisfactions.

The way of the tobacconist has never been easy. In 1604 King James put the blast on his courtiers for leaning too heavily on the leaf, claiming that "some of them [are] bestowing three, some foure hundred pounds a yeere upon this precious stinke, which I am sure might be bestowed upon many farre better uses." Since James' idea of "farre better uses" was to turn the money over to the crown, no one paid too much attention.

The dictionary definition of "cigar" comes within a smoke wisp of the description Columbus jotted down in his journal when he discovered the New World and tobacco almost simultaneously. "A roll of tobago wrapped in its own leaves," the Admiral of the Ocean Sea wrote after his lieutenant Rodrigo de Jerez reported that he had seen natives of Cuba "drinking smoke" carried to their mouths from firebrands by hollow tubes. The Indians called this tube tobago, but the Spaniards thought they meant the weed itself, and tobacco has been its name ever since.

Out of the deadly nightshade family, a Solanaceae conglomerate that includes red peppers, Jimson weed, eggplant, Irish potatoes and tomatoes, comes the genus Nicotiana. Known botanically as Nicotiana tabacum, the species most commonly used for smoking tobacco has been scientifically described as "a rank, acrid narcotic herb, viscidly pubescent with funnel-shaped corollas and two-valved seed pods, its stalks and wide-spreading leaves covered by soft, downy hair"--which shows how little scientists know about art. For the tobacconist's art in picking and curing fine leaf is as delicate as that of the most sensitive French vintager. Tobacco plants, like grape vines, are extremely sensitive to differences in soil and climate, which accounts for the great number of different varieties, so stimulating to smokers, found all over the world.

From the time seedlings are transplanted (continued on page 213)Cherished Cheroot(continued from page 105) to the open fields, it takes two or three months before the tobacco leaves, now a ripe yellowish green, are ready for individual picking. Hung on long laths in sheds, rows of picked leaves dry to a rich golden color, a process artificially encouraged in nontropical climes by charcoal fires or gas burners. The leaves are then bundled into "hands" and piled into massive round or rectangular "bulks" of thousands of pounds each. Pressure of the leaves on one another generates heat which encourages "sweating" at temperatures of up to 100 degrees. This sets up a fermentation process that develops the natural aroma and flavor of the cigar leaf much as fermentation develops the flavor and bouquet in wine making.

Packed into bales, the select inner leaf is warehoused and goes through a secondary fermentation under controlled atmospheric conditions. The positions of the stacked bales are changed and the aging leaf is continually checked to determine when it is fully cured and ready to be made into cigars. The entire process from harvesting through aging takes from six months to three or more years, depending on the area where the tobacco is grown, on the curing techniques and on the quality of the leaf.

Taken straight from the bale, tobacco is brittle-dry and has to be cased or dampened before the two halves of the leaf can be stripped off the stem for the cigar maker or machine. The classic hand-rolling process revered by our grandsires produced a maximum of 200 cigars per man a day. But before this century's turn, cigar-smoking opera impresario Oscar Hammerstein cudgeled his brain over the problem of mimicking by machine the hand-making of cigars. He developed a number of basic patents still used in today's automatons which roll out as many as 6000 cigars per diem. Of the more than seven billion cigars sold in the U. S. last year, less than five percent were hand-rolled.

The machine is basically just a hypoed version of that little old cigar maker who compresses enough filler leaves in his hand for the body size of the cigar he is rolling, then winds a single binder leaf around the filler on a hardwood board, trims this bunch to size with his knife and then starts at the tuck or lighting end of the cigar by winding a piece of wrapper leaf spirally around the bunch until he gets to the head, which is covered with a tobacco scrap, or flag, that's fastened by a dab of tasteless gum. Some tabaqueros compress the bunches in wooden molds, hollowed to cigar sizes, before adding the wrapper.

Using a bewildering combination of leaf dyes, suction tables, guillotine cutters, crimpers, carrier fingers, knurlers, softener rollers and tuck needles, all the steps of hand-rolling are duplicated by the cigar-making machine. It once required four girls to lay out the leaves and run early models of these robots, but with ingenuity and compromise, three of these Carmens can be replaced by hoppers and rollers. Speed notwithstanding, the machine has to use short filler or chopped-up leaves to fill in the cigar. Really good smokes must have long fillers. This means each of the filler leaves runs the full length of the cigar. There are precious few of these hand-rolleds that cost less than a quarter, but they are well worth the expenditure.

The way a cigar burns has a good deal to do with its taste, and the size of the filler is perhaps the important factor in the burning. Smoke the same blend of tobaccos in a long-filler cigar and one made with short filler and the two won't taste at all alike. Rolled to about the same tightness, the long filler will give the mellower smoke and burn more slowly.

Balance in a cigar comes from the delicate judgment the manufacturer brings to the selection of complementary fillers, binders and wrappers. A heavy, resinous wrapper can wipe out the fragrance of a fragile filler blend and, similarly, a rich bitey filler can obliterate the characteristic mellowness of many wrappers. Even before the three elements--filler, binder and wrapper--are combined into a cigar, the filler tobaccos must be blended. An imported Havana may be all-Cuban tobacco and a Manila all-Philippine, but that doesn't mean the filler is all of the same leaf. A choice of variously grown and cured tobaccos, their flavors wedded by fermenting together in the bulk, will create a more satisfying aroma and flavor than will only one kind of leaf.

Smokers generally judge a cigar by the wrapper, since it's the only part they can see except for the ash. American tastes generally run to the light claro shades, but old-line Latin smokers love their deep-brown maduro hues. Cigar savants agree that the finest domestic wrapper is Connecticut shade-grown. The cured shade-grown leaf is a light, even brown, of silky texture, with a distinctive mellow flavor. Florida and Georgia wrappers, also shade-grown, are used in many domestic cigars. The leaf has a greenish tinge and a neutral flavor.

Few blindfolded cigar smokers can unerringly pick out a genuine Havana at first smoke, but ever since European nobility set the fashion two centuries ago, the Havana has been the sine qua non of cigardom. This excessive confidence in the generic Havana is no different from a vinophile's whose blind allegiance to all wines from Bordeaux will lead him to gladly punch down quantiful mixtures of Algerian and Rhone reds. While no one who has drawn in the full-bodied authority of a true Vuelta Abajo will challenge its pre-eminence, some of the most dreadful tobacco in the world is grown in Cuba. As it turns out, the U. S. embargo on Cuban products has not had the impact on American cigar fanciers that was first threatened. (Actually, hand-rolled all-Havanas were never more than one percent of total cigar production.)

When President Kennedy slapped the embargo on Cuban tobacco in 1962, there was a stockpile of 11,000 tons of Cuban leaf in Tampa warehouses. This was supposed to be just enough to last for two years. Today there is still, miraculously, enough for another two years. What has happened is that manufacturers have been thinning out the percentage of Cuban leaf in their cigars, while smokers are gradually accustoming themselves to the tastes of other leaves.

The former owners of Menedez, Garcia y Cia, Ltd., makers of H. Uppman and Monte Cristo, long the monarchs of the cigar industry, have set up a factory in the Canary Islands and are making H. Uppmans there with stockpiled (supposedly enough for a number of years) Cuban tobaccos. Some of the other exiled Cuban manufacturers, such as Por Larranaga, Punch and Hoyo de Monterey, are considering establishing factories under their old brand names in the U. S. and Europe. Many Cuban experts have fled Castro's regime and have set up shop in Central America to produce the highly touted Reina Isabel cigar.

Puerto Rican tobaccos are used in many popular cigars, and some manufacturers ship Connecticut wrappers to factories they've set up in Puerto Rico, where the cigars are made and then shipped back to the States. Quantities of Jamaican cigars go to the English market, but few find their way to this country.

Sumatra wraps represent the opposite pole from the full, heavy-flavored Havana leaf, because they are neutral in flavor and blend well with any style of filler and variety of binder.

Philippine factories have always used much Sumatra leaf, although after the War some switched to Georgia wrappers. But the finest Manila cigars are wrapped in dark-brown native Isabela (a highly flavored and yet mild-smoking leaf), over Isabela binder and filler. They are hand-rolled, long-filler, and as they gain in distribution and prestige, they should make a place for themselves with younger smokers who want a light smoke that can still hold the full taste range of sun-grown, dark-cured leaf.

Many servicemen stationed in Europe developed a taste for the dry Dutch-German-style cigar, and in the past few years these characteristically stubby, torpedo-shaped, Sumatra-wrapped aromatics have been imported from Holland, West Germany, Denmark and Switzerland, along with a flood of miniature "in-between" smokes. Another source of cigars is Brazil, where a sun-grown darkish wrapper is raised and blended with various combinations of Manilan, Indonesian, Cuban and native fillers.

The shapes and sizes of cigars are almost infinite in their subtle variations. Most cigar heads are rounded, though some roll to a point; in a few special Manila, Tabacaleras' Conde de Geull and Vegueros, the leaves twist into a unique topknot instead of being trimmed or flagged. Panatelas are long, straight-sided and slim; the wide variety of brands in panatela size constitutes a last stronghold of nonconformity. Perfectos should have pointed heads, somewhat tapering sides and a shaped tuck. These are characteristics also of the larger queens. The standard roundheaded, straight-sided cigar includes a catholic collection of straights, blunts, clear Havana palmas, and so on, through the species corona--from tiny demicoronas to doubles which might stretch over seven inches in length--exceeded only by the Gargantuan cheroot named after that indomitable cigarist, Churchill. Special shapes include triangles, pressed between cedar blocks by hand, expensive pyramid shapes and the classic open-at-both-ends. Cigarillos, the cigarette-sized cigar which zoomed to popularity in the Forties, now sell on an average of a few hundred million per annum.

Naturally, the largest market is for low-priced cigars, a category which is amazingly consistent in quality, and practically always in good condition due to fast turnover and sealed packaging. As a matter of statistics, over 40 percent of the nearly seven billion cigars sold last year in this country retailed for less than six cents, and more than 90 percent went for less than fifteen cents.

Obviously, many factors determine your selection of a cigar. Basic to your choice is the kind of tobacco you prefer and the size that is best suited for a particular time. Heavy cigar smokers establish habit and preference patterns, but many of them include a dozen or more different cigars in their routine. In some cases, it can be the same tobacco with the same-color wrapper in different sizes to suit the mood and the time of day. Others switch brands and shapes for variety's sake. It makes sense that a small, stimulating, aromatic smoke that sets you up after breakfast replaces neither the medium-sized mellow one that keeps taste buds in tune and juices flowing at work and play, nor the full-bodied after-dinner cigar.

The place where you buy your cigars will have a great deal to do with how well you enjoy them, because the cigar is a delicate, perishable commodity that requires expert dealer care. Cigars can be bought almost anywhere: in supermarkets, drugstores and groceries. This makes no difference if you're buying five-packs; they are sealed, overwrapped and resealed to stay in manufactured condition. But if you're buying better smokes from or by the box, find yourself a retailer who knows something about what he's selling, takes pride in the selection and condition of his stock and can help you develop your taste. Every major city has a few old-line tobacconist shops where purchasing cigars is a delight to the senses and not just another "two-for-a-quarter" counter transaction.

Cigars spoil easily because they absorb other flavors and aromas from the air. For instance, tobacco can't be grown near the seacoast, since it takes on a salt taste; bales have to be carefully sealed when shipped by water for the same reason. A really conscientious tobacconist will let cigars "recuperate" from an ocean voyage for a month or two before putting them on the shelf for sale. Don't store cigars near food or cosmetics, and never buy from a retailer who keeps lighter fluid near open cigar boxes.

When choosing a cigar from the box, press down gently on the rounded head, raising the tuck end from its resting place. You can crackle the wrappers by squeezing the cylinders between thumb and forefinger. Take a deep sniff along the cigar's body to get a first whiff of tobacco character commingled with the scent of the box. Draw some air through the unlit cigar to further your impression. With just a little experience, you'll be able to tell by softly pressing the cigar with your fingers whether the filler is even from head to tuck, and how loose or tight the roll is. A soft, loosely rolled cigar will smoke much faster than the traditional Cuban tight roll, and its uneven filler is likely to have a bad burn. American tastes generally lean toward the moist taste of the Cuban originals, and manufacturers maintain storage humidors designed to make a fair imitation of the Cuban climate, a relative humidity of 68 and an average temperature of 65 degrees. Europeans, however, prefer a much drier version that goes snap, crackle and pop when squeezed. If you find your cigar too dry, breathe into its tuck end a few times and it will become more moist.

The size of the hole through which you puff your cigar controls the volume of smoke. If you want it just right--not so small that you have to pull hard, and not so large that your palate is overwhelmed--use a cigar cutter, preferably one that slices a V-shaped aperture. Biting or chewing a hole in the cigar's head or squeezing it until it breaks can look sloppy, do damage and spoil your smoke.

A single wooden match is best to light a good-sized cigar, but it may take several of the paper kind. After lighting the match, wait until its chemical head is consumed, then hold it about half an inch below the cigar's tuck end and puff gently, slowly turning the cigar as the flame jumps to it until the whole end glows evenly. The old movie business of holding the cigar to a flame and not actually putting it to your lips until it is lit does work, but it really isn't necessary and it takes an Adolphe Menjou type to pull it off. Never use a fluid lighter unless you want a benzene-flavored smoke. Butane models do a good, flavorless job.

Careful lighting goes a long way toward giving your cigar an even burn and ash. If your cigar goes out, pay no attention to the old wives' tale that a cigar should not be relit. While the cigar is still warm, rub the char off with a match-stick before relighting, and puff gently or you'll draw in the charry flavor before it has a chance to burn off.

It takes a good half dozen or more puffs before a cigar warms up enough to taste: You can feel the warmth traveling up the cigar's body puff by puff. The taste won't come through till you smoke past the tuck. Whatever you smoke, puff slowly, savoring the smoke, with plenty of time between puffs. Optimum flavor and aroma doesn't get a chance to develop with fast smoking. Don't keep the cigar in your mouth except when puffing; that's only for fight managers and booking agents. When you're finished, just let the cigar the quietly. It's when you stuff them out that their pleasant bouquet becomes a "precious stinke."

Whether pure white, dark or the steel gray of fine Havana, the ash covering your cigar's coal should be at least half an inch long to keep the smoke cool and the burn slow. Length of ash depends a great deal on the cut of the filler. A properly long, heavy ash blocks loss of flavor and aroma.

A cigar--advertising homilies to the contrary--is not good to the last puff. As it grows shorter and there's less space for cooling to take place between your mouth and the coal, the burn gets hotter and tars and resins collect in the stub. Don't spoil your pleasure by smoking to the bitter end. Discard the butt as soon as you taste the slightest harshness.

Queen Victoria was quite vehement in her dislike of cigars and made life hell for any minister who indulged. You may have the misfortune of meeting up with a relic of her era whose classic bugaboos are smoke-impregnated curtains and clothes, odiferous butts, ashes and burns. But recent polls show that 90 percent of today's women have no objections to cigars or to men who smoke them. Don't expect, though, to come across many young ladies who really know their cigars. Just consider yourself lucky if you find one who is pleasantly surprised by your drawing out a cigar case, is suitably impressed as you light up with ceremony and, finally, is duly appreciative of your enjoyment. If the pleasure you take in her company adds to the satisfaction you have in your roll of tobacco, you are twice blessed. Happy smoking!