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1400 post contest

Nice new avatar Brad! You ought to get Loren to do a commercial for you guys! :laugh:
 
Worst
The worst smoking experience I ever had occurred when I smoked a fake Cohiba Esplendido that supposedly came from the mid 1980s. I think what made the experience so awful was the fact that I had such high expectations about the cigar and the hype that filled my head made the unpleasant experience even worse. In order for me to describe just how bad the cigar tasted I feel that I should share a story that fully details just how bad the cigar experience was for me.

Fake Cohiba

Mike graduated from college back in May of 2006. That night he went out with his friends and did some tequila shots that he was still feeling the next morning. I left him alone and went to work putting the finishing touches on the deck I was building. Mike ate some lunch and came out to see how I was coming along. I asked if he wanted to help and he said he was best at “supervising” so I went about working and he went inside to get some cigars. He came back with two Nicaragua Juan Lopez Epicure No. 1s. This was back in the days when I thought CA had good ratings, and since the Juan Lopez Epicure No. 1 scored 92 I took this to mean that these were good cigars and this is why I bought Mike the box for his graduation.

We lit up the cigars and I went back to working while he sat down to “supervise.” I thought the cigar was strong, Mike began to feel that the cigar was really strong. He began to complain that his stomach ached. I knew that strong cigars can make you sick but what I witnessed that day was truly something to behold. Mike began to sweat quite a bit and I asked him if he was all right, he responded by raising a butt cheek and letting out a long fart that was one of the most hideous things that I’ve ever heard. I was too far away from his initial blast to smell the WMD he had just unleashed into the world, but I noticed him move from his seat to another chair away from ground zero. The wind carried the smell of the horrid blast past me and it was something akin to boiling rubber mixed with moldy cheese. Mike then began to push out a series of bombs in rapid succession that I knew could only mean one thing. He quickly put down the cigar and ran to the toilet as fast as his squeezed butt cheeks would allow him to move.

Then his asshole exploded.

I heard the massive explosion all the way out on our deck and the symphony of hellish sounds that came from inside was like something out of the Exorcist. I was tempted to go inside and stand in front of the bathroom door and shout, “The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!” in hopes that this would help expel the demon residing in his ass, but I thought this was just too cruel. Mike slept for the rest of the day and hasn’t really visited the box of Juan Lopez Epicure No. 1s. This is the first time that I’ve ever witnessed a cigar make someone’s asshole explode. I think it was a combination of the tequila and the burrito he ate for lunch and the strong cigar set it off.

I tell you this story for the sake of context. That fake Cohiba I smoked was worse, because the aftertaste that the cigar left in my mouth can only be compared to that horrific smell that Mike created that day.

Best
The best cigar experience I ever had would be the La Gloria Cubana Medaille D-Or No.1 from 2000 that I smoked on the night I graduated from College. I did a review of one later on here:LGC Mdo #1

I smoked five or six cigars that night and found the LGC to be the best. Mike got me a box for my graduation and I really enjoyed them. I could hardly have imagined the day that I graduated from college. I sat out on our deck and smoked through the night with Mike. I reflected on many things. What made the experience so enjoyable was the feeling of relief I got when I smoked the cigar. I never graduated from high school and the struggle that I went through to get to this point was more than I bargained for, but the rewards were well worth it. I never expected to graduate with honors, but I managed to graduate Cum Laude and a few months later I got my fellowship and will go to grad school. The friends and family were the highlight of that night and many of them sat down and enjoyed a cigar with us.
 
I got to admit that I thought that I would get a better response to this.
 
OK. Here goes, as promised.....

Several years ago, when cigars were more of a novelty to me than a passion, my worst cigar experience began in the duty free port of Cozumel. Wifey and I were taking a short cruise and I had taken a few cigars with me, but I hadn’t taken many. I was hoping to buy and try something new while I was away. After a day of frolicking in the sand and sun, we were headed back to the ship and stopped at duty free for a couple of bottles of Añejo to take home. There just happened to be a little cigar shop across the way, so I thought, “let’s take a look in there”. Sure enough, there they were, genuine Cuban Cohibas. Now I’m no dumbass. I knew the stores back at the market square were all a big rip-off , but hey!, this is the duty free shop. They got the real deal here. So I bought a couple of sticks and figured I’d smoke them on the ship to see if I could figure out something about his Cuban mystique.

Well, that evening, I couldn’t wait. While the lady was getting ready, I went in search of a place to enjoy my illicit fruit. Since there are only a few places on deck, to smoke, I went up top. It was late, there weren’t many people up there, in fact, the place was might near deserted. Good thing too. The anticipation was running high. I clipped it, lit it and got ready to enjoy my first Cuban cigar.

Oh shit!! WTF was that?!?! This just cannot be!! I swear, smoking broom bristles would have been better than that. The worst part of the story (or best depending on your POV) is that I stayed on it for about another 30 minutes. I kept lying to myself thinking it would mellow out or something. After all, it was a Cuban!! It never happened though. It was acrid, harsh, dryer than a popcorn fart, and it burned hotter than hell. I finally ditched it.

Wifey shows up about 20 minutes later. She smiles big and asks “Well, how was it?”

I didn’t really want to tell her the truth, so I said “Not bad.”

Oh, and about the other stick that I didn’t smoke. I re-banded it and sent it to Enerjay.

He loved it!!


Without question, my best cigar related experience happened just a couple of months ago. I had received a anonymous bomb from the Cigar Pass Fairy a couple of weeks prior. I wasn’t sure who it was but a little research turned up a couple of suspects. A few day later I sent out some retaliatory missiles with my return address listed as the CP Fairy Apprentice. I had some fun with it.

Anyway, about a week later, my boss walks into my office and says, “Do you know a Brandon Freebern?”

“Well, uh yeah, sort of.” I replied.

“Well what did you do to piss him off?” By this time most everyone in the office had gathered around, but I wasn’t sure exactly why.

I said, “I don’t know, why do you ask?”

“Well it looks like he sent you this package and it’s addressed to ‘Gary the Fairy’. What is it?”

I took the box and said, “Just guessing, I’d say it’s cigars”.

About that time, the two ladies from the front office asked me “What do you want us to do with all these?”.

I turned around and almost choked. There they stood, arms loaded to the max with priority boxes. My brothers had hit me, and hit me hard. It was an amazing thing to see.

Anyway, I was supposed to leave on vacation early the next morning and I hadn’t packed or anything. I managed to quickly look through the boxes before I left work. We had last minute errands to run when I got home and I had to finish packing before going to bed late.

The next day, we drove almost all day to get to Branson, MO. We were headed to the National Indian Motorcycle rally for a week of riding the Ozarks. As soon as we got settled in, I went digging in the travel humi for something to help celebrate everything. With all the stuff going on from the day before, I was glad I had actually remembered to pack some smokes including some of the goodies I had just received. I opened the box and right on top, there it was, Ashton VSG. That was my smoke for the evening. So me, Table Rock Lake, and a northwest Missouri sunset enjoyed a very nice cigar given to me by one of some of the greatest bunch of guys that I have had the pleasure to meet. It was an outstanding ending to a very interesting couple of days.
 
Worst:

My worst cigar experience came on March 29, 2007. I had won a contest run by Tasman and it contained an OpusX Fuente Fuente in it. Having read all of the hype surrounding Opus, it did not last long in my tupperdor before I fired it up on this horrid Thursday. I ate lunch, knowing that I would not be able to tackle this monster on an empty stomach. It was a gorgeous day outside. I forget the exact time, but I know it was about 2:45 PM because I had about two hours to finish this cigar before my 5:00 PM class. Most of the girls, probably six of the nine, next door were outside with most of the guys from my house playing basketball or tanning on the lawn. I pulled up a chair on the porch and sparked up. I quickly realized I was in for one hell of a ride. The flavor was deeper and richer than I had ever tasted in cigar. I was simply just determined to make it through it; having had several bad experiences with other cigars did not make me entirely confident! So I am enjoying the cigar; I call my brother to rub it in his face that I just lit up my first Opus. He was at the airport flying off to some location, so in turn I was more jealous than him by the end of the conversation. At the 4:30 mark, I’m not even close to done. I realize I’m either going to have to put this bad boy down or skip class. It turns out in the end, I probably should have put it down for a multitude of reasons, but at the time I was not putting this cigar down. I was going to finish. I was extremely perplexed by the amount of time this cigar was taking to smoke. I am always confused by people’s estimations of cigar smoking time, as mine are always double. Anyway, I digress. I remember some of the peculiarities of this Opus. My pallet is definitely way overwhelmed by this bugger, so I don’t taste anything on the inhale, but there is an explosion of flavor on the exhale. This continues on to about 5:15, when my cigar smoking buddy, Mike (Jimihendrix), pops his head out and decides to study before his exam while I smoke my cigar. After having a quick conversation with me, I realize that I should not be sitting down. I had no idea how incredibly nicotine sick I had become. I quickly stood up and decided to take a walk to try and see how bad it was. In fact, I was so far gone that I could barely walk. I simply staggered down a few steps and sat down. However, I persevered on! That stick stayed against my lips. At this point, Mike knew something was wrong. He noticed the green look on my face and started to ask if I was okay. He began offering me something to eat or drink, but I didn’t want to pollute the flavors of one of the best cigars produced today. After a few more minutes of Mike chuckling at me, I realized that the Opus had defeated me. I offered what was left to Mike and he graciously took it, curious as well to what all of the hype was surrounding the oh so holy Opus. I grabbed the pretzels out of Mike’s hands and began literally shoving them in my face, with most of them winding up on the ground, like a drunk who knows he has drank too much and is trying to settle his stomach so he doesn’t have to spend the night riding the porcelain bus. Mike found this part especially amusing, as I did feel like I had drank too much and was about to hurl. Mike continued smoking the Opus and I tried to gain the will power to make it inside to my bed. I asked him what he thought of the cigar and he thought it was fantastic. After that, I staggered inside to my bed and laid down. Here, I closed my eyes, but the nightmare wouldn’t end. I got the spins! With my eyes closed it just felt as if I was aboard the Gravitron at Wildwood’s Morey’s Pier and I thought I was doomed to throw up, which probably would’ve ended my cigar smoking days. As it turns out, the Gravitron shut down and I was able to fall asleep. When I woke up around 8:00 PM, I went out into the living room and proceeded to ask Mike how he liked the cigar. With only an inch or inch and a half left, I figured he couldn’t have gotten too much out of it. It turns out that that last inch had messed him up as well. He said that the cigar had made him feel so shitty; luckily the feeling subsided right before his exam. He was freaking out though because he knew there was no way he would be able to concentrate while on the nicotine high that the Opus had put him on. So that was that for the night. I walked into class on next Tuesday and asked what happened in class on that Thursday I missed. I missed a surprise quiz….d’oh!

Best:

My best cigar smoking experience came on March 12, 2007. I have one brother, Joe, who is nine years older than I am. Having such a big age difference between us, I really didn’t get to know my brother or hang out with him that much. He left for college in Delaware when I was just a wee lad, so after that I barely ever saw him less for holidays and it really continues to be that way to this day. You never really think about it, but there wasn’t really much connection between my brother and I in the way of common interests. We saw each other rarely so it wasn’t very hard to strike up conversation while we were with each other. However, when I decided to try cigars out and really fell in love with them, I sent an email to my brother about my newfound hobby. I knew that he had been involved with cigars in the past, but I didn’t know if he still smoked or whether he smoked Phillies or White Owls. So the next day he IM’s me and we chat for a while about cigars. He tells me so excitedly about how he just picked up a box of Cohibas. I quickly shot him down, telling him that they were fake. He insisted that they weren’t and that his friend had picked them up in the Dominican, where Cubans are legal, so why would they be fake. I dropped the conversation about the Cohibas, not wanting to aggravate him any further. So he tells me that he is coming to my parent’s house for whatever holiday weekend, which I did not know about. He told me that he had acquired the Dogfish Head IPA120 that I had been telling him to pick up, so I told him that I would pick up the cigars for the evening. I promptly called Al and he decided that Padron 1926 Maduro No. 9’s would be perfect for the occasion. I agreed. Later in the conversation, I guess it was eating at him, my brother types, “They’re fake.” I had forgotten about the Cohibas by this point, but he sent me a link describing fake Cubans. He goes “Mine have a glass top. They have to be fake.” Looking back, that was so funny. Anyway, back to March 12th. We light up our Padrons at night; we skipped the IPA to share the cigars as per CP’s recommendation. It was a beautiful night: cool and not buggy. Bare in mind, this was my fifth cigar ever. For me, I could barely taste a thing. My pallet was so overwhelmed and my brother just kept saying they were incredibly full bodied. The cigar could have been a Phillies or a White Owl. I didn’t really care; sharing those moments with my brother meant a lot to me. It allowed us to (re)connect and we actually talk all the time now. He doesn’t have the willpower or time that I do to extensively research cigars, so he calls me up and gets suggestions from me. I couldn’t ask for a better cigar than that Padron or thank cigars enough for the rebirth of our relationship. My brother also likes it too, as he’s a total Padron whore now. I love keeping in touch with him and I know this will be something that we will be able to connect with forever.

As a side note, I did get him a real Cohiba and he was blown away. He might also be getting some more for an upcoming birthday as well ;).
 
Smokyballs said:
I got to admit that I thought that I would get a better response to this.
Click to expand...


I feel your pain Brad.

I'm running a contest in a pass and we've only had 3 people post, granted there are only 9 in the pass at the moment.

My one year Anni contest has only had 3 people post a review, and it's been running for nearly 20 days!

This is strange. ???
 
Best: Two weeks ago, my father and I sat down on the patio after completing a week long job. Painting our house. My father had traveled for the occasion and a week earlier I had procured two ’03 Party Shorts from a CP BOTL for celebratory purposes. The smokes were phenomenal. The profile was complex and full of caramel, nuts, and C-tang the whole way through.

My father usually smokes cheap cigars, and more often than not he inhales a good deal of the smoke. The Party Shorts were the only cigars I’ve ever seen him smoke without inhaling, not even in the least. Which is a step forward for a guy who’s had two heart attacks.

Half way through the smokes, I literally felt like I was high. I’m not talking about the nicotine buzz either. So I made a comment about “maybe they really do put ghanja in the good ones,” and my father went on to retell the story about when he’d first tried marijuana, and then also told a new story about when he’d smoked recently. I thought that was a goof.

The first story is when he’s at some conference and goes out with some folks for drinks and then back to a hotel where the weed is passed around. He gets giggly/paranoid and another guy starts telling him he’s going to kill him for looking at his daughter. None of these guys knew each other before that day and no one’s daughter was around, so it got hairy and the old man didn’t touch it again until just recently (thirty years later). Second time around, no one threatened to kill anyone, pops felt giggly/paranoid again, but when it came time to lay down to sleep, he couldn’t. He was as tired as he’d ever been, but kept hearing things like leaves blowing across the roof, a faucet dripping in the basement, and a raccoon going through the trash.

We laughed pretty hard, and had a week I doubt I’ll ever forget.

Me and my father celebrating

Worst: My wife and I had a sitter who canceled on us at the last moment this past New Year’s Eve. She called it a night at 10 pm and I went to the bar for a smoke. My first Tatuaje. A Regios I had somehow managed to store for 6 mos. It was fantastic, but it really kicked my ass. I started to feel awfully sick when I walked outside to well over a foot of snow on the ground and everything blowing. I drive a Cooper.

That was the worst driving experience I’ve ever had, and also one I could have avoided given that this storm had been reported and discussed at length with drunken bar company. Regardless, that cigar was too good to abandon and it was meant to be smoked that night, but getting back was a nightmare. I felt like a mouse in a maze. A county plow had driven around at random and I thought it was going to be impossible to zig zag my way through the maze of plowed and unplowed paths. Not to mention that I could barely see anything and had to keep my window down in case I might vomit.

After an hour of sweating bullets, I finally found my way home only to have my route into the driveway blocked by a plow bank. Another 20 minutes later and I was accelerating down the alley opposite our house, jumping over a smaller bank and pushing both feet onto the brake to keep the Mini from crashing through the garage and into our neighbor’s yard. It was insane, and yet another smoke I won’t soon forget.

Thanks for the contest Smokey, sorry it took so long to post. It's been a crazy week and this is the first chance I've had to compile this.
 
Thanks for the contest. Here my 2 experiences.

August 16th 2002 was a very sad day; just 3 days after my Mom passed away at the age of 80. My introduction to cigars happened that day. The whole family gathered at my Dad’s house after the funeral. Being that 2 of my 4 brothers live out of state, we rarely got together. My oldest brother brought Arturo Fuentes for everyone, and we sat in the backyard smoking and talking.

My Dad worked 2 jobs while we were growing up, so we never really got to know him well. But the 6 of us sitting around smoking cigars brought out many things we didn’t know about Dad. We heard a lot about the 4 years he spent as a Marine in World War 2.

The 2 stories I remember most have an eerie connection; they both involve the invasion of Guadalcanal. Dad told us about the shelling they took as his landing craft first hit the beach. The gate of the landing craft fell down and he came running out, shells exploding all around him. The guys to his right and left both got hit and were killed. “Five feet to each side” he said not finishing his thought. One of my brothers said, “five feet either way, and none of us would be here; five sons, 7 grandkids, 3 great grand kids.” That really made us stop for a second and be thankful.

The other thing that happened at Guadalcanal was the sinking of the light Cruiser Juneau. I am not sure if this happened before of after the landing, but Dad told us that he saw the Juneau sink after being hit by a Japanese torpedo. On board the Juneau were 5 brothers named Sullivan, and all of them were killed.

During that one battle, 5 brothers were killed, but my Dad escaped death and fathered 5 boys. I didn’t make that connection that day, but I did later. I was either fate, or God's will, but it made me think.

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I woke up one warm July day a couple years ago feeling like the whole world was against me. I was so angry, depressed and lonely. As I said earlier, I have 4 brothers; all of them over 6 feet tall and around 200 lbs. They took after my Dad. I, however, took after my Mom. I am short, overweight and bald. I blamed God; “Why couldn’t I have been tall and thin”? I even blamed myself; “If you could just have more willpower, you could lose the weight”.

My 4 brothers all married (a few of them more than once) and had kids and grand kids. I never found the right lady. I blamed that on me being heavy. Maybe I was so down because Fathers Day was a couple weeks before, and I felt empty never having a child of my own.

I grabbed a cigar from the humidor and went out to the patio. I sat down, lit the cigar and looked around. It was a sunny day. The flowers were in bloom. At a distance I could see a couple women sunbathing next to the pool. I thought to myself about how good I have it.

Just 5 miles down the road are people living in real poverty, in dilapidated, rundown houses. There are kids growing up there with no father because he left or is in prison; their mother working for $7 an hour just to scrape by. There are men and women coming home from Iraq with missing arms or legs; and some are coming home in a coffin. I even thought of Mrs. Sullivan and her 5 sons. “And there I was bitching about being lonely?”

I started to feel thankful. I was sitting on my patio in a great apartment with a garden view and was smoking a Monte # 2, one of the world’s finest cigars. I had no money problems and was relatively healthy. I felt my whole attitude change. The sky seemed a bit bluer, the flowers more colorful, the grass greener, and the birds chirping louder.

I remember that cigar very well, more so than any other cigar. The taste was fabulous, but the lesson was even more so.
 
I miss all the cool contests until they are almost up! I'm strapped for time, but I'll get an entry in tonight.
 
Mark Twain said:
Smokyballs said:
I got to admit that I thought that I would get a better response to this.
Click to expand...


I feel your pain Brad.

I'm running a contest in a pass and we've only had 3 people post, granted there are only 9 in the pass at the moment.

My one year Anni contest has only had 3 people post a review, and it's been running for nearly 20 days!

This is strange. ???
Click to expand...

It seems to me that overall activity on the site has been down lately. Maybe there's a bunch of people out of pocket for vacations and other summer stuff. Don't know, but you're right. It's weird.
 
I'm sitting here trying to figure out what the BEST experience was, but I do know what the worst was!

Bad-When I first started getting back into cigars, I was going to this cigar bar n beautiful downtown Indianapolis. Really swanky place...smooth jazz playing just loud enough so you could talk to someone with you, but loud enough so you didn't overhear the people next to you.

Back then, I really didn't have that many snobbish cigars or anything spectacular. I usually bought from the bar. I would plunk down $15 for a Monte #2 or $12 for a Hemmy Short Story and sit and be one of the guys.

At sometime, someone offered me one of their favorite cigars, a Lars Teten. I never heard of a Lars before so I took it, thanked the guy and lit it up. Nothing in the world could prepare me for the blast of hi-karate that the cigar obviously was dipped in. I did start to notice that my buddy was scooting further away from me...and I noticed that some of the other people were kinda drifting away from me too. I mean noticeably drifting away. It was like someone farted on an elevator.

I got up to go take a piss and when I came back the cigar was sitting in a glass of water and underneath the glass was the cigar list.

Good-One of the highlights of smoking cigars is the quiet introspective time you get when you put the world on hold and you are alone with you thoughts. A while back, I was gifted a special cigar by someone here on CP. The cigar itself was outstanding but what made it a special occasion was all the other things that was going on around the cigar. I was burned out from spending too many hours being someones employee, someones fiancee, and dad. I needed some Rob time- sometime to be me.

I was going over to a friends house to hangout, listening to a cd that an old friend sent to me while smoking a cigar that a new friend gave to me. All three of these guys I would honestly call a brother and it was really cool mood to be in the company of three brothers in spirit at the same time. That cigar helped bring me out of a month long funk and helped me get my head on straight again.

Cool contest B! What's really great is reading all of these stories, it's like a deeper side of CP that I don't see that often.
 
Ok gang, I've decided that this contest doesn't have enough entries to give away my grand prize yet. What I'm going to do is to send out a super premium 5'er for the guys that got in on the original deadline(you guys will also be held higher in my judging). I'm going to extend this for one more week. I've really been enjoying these outstanding stories and I thank you all for sharing them with me!
 
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