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What's your cigar story?

T

txmatt

El Cheapo smoker
Joined
May 23, 2004
Messages
638
On another forum is a thread about how you started smoking cigars. I found I wasn't happy with telling just how I started but the whole shebang of how I got where I am now. If you read it there, skip it here, its mostly a copy/paste. :)

I would like to read the stories of members here. POST YOURS :D

I bummed my first cigarette sometime in College at a party or a bar when I was drunk. Throughout the year I bummed cigars from friends who smoked at parties/bars/concerts. On a trip to NYC to visit a friend I tried an unfiltered Lucky Strike and it became "my brand", I started buying them for myself. The cigarette addiction took hold and soon (as a poor college student) I could no longer afford the habbit.

I found that rolling my own would allow me to continue, and at a party I noticed a guy with a nice case that rolled the cigarette and kicked it out of the top when you closed it. I went and asked him about it, and he told me where he ordered it and also shared with me that adding a bit of aromatic pipe tobacco to the mix would draw attention from chicks. I thought the case would get girls' attention by itself but decided to go into a tobacco store to pick up some pipe tobacco anyways. That store also had a huge walk in humidor that intrigued me, but I never went in.

When I knew I needed to kick the cigarette habit I started to buy all of my tobacco at this store because they carried a brand of additive free tobacco. One afternoon when I was in there I asked the salesperson (whom by this time I knew by name) what he'd recommend I try for a cigar. He said, "I was wondering how long it would be before you aked." He recommended I try AF pointing at the DCs. I reached below those for a couple of less expensive cigars of the same brand (a couple of Curly Heads) and reminded him I started rolling cigarettes because I was poor. He confidently told me, "you will be back for those."

The rest is history. Although some of my friends and neighbors smoked machine made GyV and AyC they never tasted any different/better to me than my cigarettes. When I let them try the Curly Heads they were all also going to the cigar shop and buying them there and trying different brands. One of my favorites early on was Macanudo (when they were still made in Jamaica), but quit that as the boom cranked up and they moved to DR. Following that my pattern was to get a recommendation for a cheap yet decent cigar. After trying singles I would buy boxes/bundles and stick with that brand until the boom swallowed it up. I went through periods of Montesino, then La Unica, Tamboril (don't know how I could stand those), and finally La Finca. In 1998, after I had been used to spending $28/box of La Finca, they rang up for $80 (CI gave them a 91). I quit buying cigars at that point. I would smoke them twice a year or so at gatherings with my wife's family as its a longstanding tradition. On a backcountry hiking trip in 2000 with the men of my wife's family I was asked to bring cigars for the group. I was pleased after a bit of online shopping to see that cigars were back to the prices of the early to mid 90s. I bought a box of La Finca coronas and a bundle of La Unica #400M. After this trip I started buying singles of different brands, but still only smoked 3-4 times a year.

In May of this year my Father-In-Law and I were asked to bring cigars for the guys on a week long trip on the beach. I decided to hit some forums to study and got swallowed up by this addiction. My tupperdor of 6-8 cigars became a Coolerdor of 350+ sticks after finding cigarbid.com. Although at least 20% of the sticks I have bought since I wouldn't buy again; smoking them has allowed me to realize exactly what I do like. On the trip I brought 50 cigars, 5 different ones apiece for the 10 smokers, and now several of my wife's uncles are asking me for recommendations.

I now know about several $1 - $2 sticks I like for go to/yard cigars, and many $3 - $5 cigars I can smoke on Fridays or better-than-ordinary days. Best yet is that the few cigars I have "splurged" on in the $8 - $15 range this year (recommendations from forums) may now be my new favorites. ('64 PAM and Ashton VSG) Although I can't buy expensive sticks like that often, its great knowing what exactly I want to try next. (big $$$ Graycliff Espresso). When I walk into a store's humidor I no longer walk around randomly looking at cigars or the stupid "rated X by Y" signs but instead have specific cigars in mind or at least a specific type. On my last trip to the closest cigar shop I told the clerk I was looking for a sungrown I hadn't yet tried. After about 8 recommendations he went and got a book and was finally able to come up with a Fonseca Cedar Sungrown. I am going to need to find a different shop to continue my exploration of this wrapper. Cigar smoking is very fun for me to say the least.

!!Thanks CP!!
Matt
 
Hmm, interesting story there txmatt, here's how I got into cigars

I never drank or smoked in high school. My parents were Mormon so that sinning stuff was kind of a no-no. While in college, a friend and I were absoltuely trashed in my apartment. We got to talking about smoking and then walked over to the service station and bought Camel cigarettes. I then "moved on" to swisher-sweets with the wood tip thing. I pretty much took a break from partying and smoking during my last two years of college and just swore it off as a "phase" I didn't smoke again until four years later when my wife and I would go to the bars with her friend. It was an every weekend type of deal and we were smoking pretty heavily at the time. Just cigarettes, no cigars mind you. We did that for two summers in a row and then stopped. The next part of the story can pretty much be blamed on Gibu and Randyb1. :D :) For those who don't know, Randyb1 is my brother-in-law who introduced me to his friend Gibu. While at Gibu's house, he showed me all his humidors and interesting cigars. He offered several cigars to me and I felt kind of rude for even accepting-cigars has to be the only "hobby" where sharing is something that you don't begrudge doing. At christmas time, they assembled a tuppedor for me filled with cigars-I was hooked ever since then.
 
Well, I had smoked cigarettes on and off for 20 years (finally quit for good in 94), and had mixed in a few "Tipped" cigars along the way. But never had a "premium" cigar.

2 years ago this week my Mom died; and after the service the whole family met at my parents house. My oldest brother (I have 4 brothers) brought cigars for my brothers and Dad. He had all AF's of different sizes. His was a cedar wrapped churchell if I remember right. So we had a cookout and my Dad told storys about the war (WWII). He never talked about the war before, so this was new to us.

2 stories stand out. Dad was a Marine in the Pacific and he told us how he saw the ship blow up that carried the 5 Sullivan brothers (all of them died). Me being one of 5 brothers, it sort of seemed erie. It also made me think about thier Mother.... what she must have felt when she was told.

The other story my Dad told me was about his landing on Guadelcanal. My Dad has a newspaper photo that shows him coming out of those beach landing crafts. He said that a few seconds after that pic was taken, a couple shells landed next to him and the men to his right and left were both killed. It was then my oldest brother said, "a couple feet either way and nobody would be here". 5 kids 6 grandkids, 2 great-grankids, wives etc.

So, when I think about my first cigar, I think not only about Mom, but that we learned alot more about Dad that day.

Bruce
 
I started smoking cigs at 13, stealing my fathers Camels and buying Tarytons or Parliments from the 7-11 near school. At 16 I joined the Corps (you could sorta get away with that back then) and smoked the typical Swishers, Blackstones, Crooks etc etc out in the field. Had my first Cubans while at Gitmo and they seriously kicked my butt. Came back to the states and would buy a box of "something" anytime we went out to the field. RyJ was easy to get on post as the "premium" brand so it was mostly those. I seem to remember it was about $5-6 for a box of churchills in the early 70's. A carton of Camels was $1.50 at the PX then so $5 was the big time lol!

As I got older and converted from being enlisted scum :0 to an Officer and a Gentleman my fellow zeros smoked a higher class cigar. Hoyo's and Mac's were popular and once in a while you'd see a Monte. I stayed like that until about '94 when the boom began and started trying a bunch of different smokes over the next few years. I'm was mostly a mediorce smoker not spending too much for anything until I retired in 2001. My quality has goon up a bit but I still have tons of everyday domestics but I am starting to get a nice collection of some of the better ones. Diamond Crown, Don carlos, Hemingway, Oliva, Gurkha et al. I even plan on getting a box of Cubans or two sometime this year :D
 
Hmmm,

This a long story that I tried to condense but you know me so feel free to skip it :p :

In high school (1978 - 1979), we'd buy boxes of White Owl minatures. I NEVER could smoke cigarettes, they always make me gag :p My father stopped smoking in 1973 but he used to smoke the Connecticut puros, Munniemakers & Judges Cave and Summerdales, bascially gas station cigars so we'd buy some of those in college along with some green bundled something or others :0 In the late 80's and early 90's, I'd smoke gas station cigars once a month when "the guys" would go to the monthly steak dinner at the Sprague Rod & Gun club.

Back in my married days in 1992, my wife at the time had a subscription to "Wine Spectator" and all subcribers were offered Volume I, Number 1 of Cigar Aficionado. I started my subscription then and have never missed an issue. That got me smoking premium cigars as I would try some of the ones they rated at a local smoke shop in Hartford (which is now closed :( ) I didn't really start buying premium cigars regularly until about 1997. I discovered JR's and liked to look for "deals" but usually wound up being disappointed. Settled on Honduran & Nicaraguan cigars back then, HDM', ERDM, Remedios, Excalibur, etc. A good friend of mine who was a City of Norwich policeman opened a smoke shop in Norwich so I used to visit him quite frequently until he closed it a few years ago.

While working at the Connecticut DEP, one of the engineers for one of our consulting companies told me about how he just won this thing called "CigarPool" so I joined that in 2001 (he's still in, Eric Epner, #33 & #83). Up until then, I only had two small humidors. I won CigarPool in May of 2003. I met Dave Frank and Ted "Misc" Olivero on CigarPool who had told me about CigarPass. Joined here in June of 2003, won CigarPool again in October of 2003 and was forced to construct a refrigerdor and a coolerdor.

I've been smoking Havanas since 1994 but until this year, I'd be lucky if I had one or two a year. I bought the Min Ron Nee book last fall and now, it's more like one or two Havanas a day :0 I recently discovered the "European Cigar Cult Journal" (thanks Matt R :thumbs: ) which is much better than cA in my opinion.
 
Backslide420 said:
Dang CC I was born In 1978 hehehehehe
Click to expand...
The day after my ex-wife turned 24 and she already had two kids by then, born in 1974 & 1976 :0 :D
 
How I got into cigars . . . Well I never smoked anything (cigars or cigs) until a few years ago (2000). In fact, since my parents smoked cigarettes I was pretty much turned off from smoking at all. This all changed when a friend of mine was getting married and I was asked to stand up in his wedding. I decided it would be cool to get some cigars to pass out to him and the other groomsmen. Just regular cigars wouldn't cut it though . . . I wanted to pass out some real Cubans! So a week before the wedding I crossed the boarder into Canada and procurred some. I don't even remember what kind they were! Anyway, after the wedding we fired up the victory smokes and low and behold I discovered they were actually good! Now I have one humidor filled and another on order. I don't smoke that often, one or two sticks a month is all I need. I still won't touch cigarettes though.
 
Here is my story. Mine is a cut and paste from the other site also.

I was born in 77 :D

I began smoking cigars occasionally around 18 or so. Smoking cigars was a way to spend some quality time with my dad on special occasions like father’s day, graduation, etc.

A few years later on a trip to Montreal I discovered the fine taste of ISOMs. A RyJ Cedro #3 and Monty #4's and I was hooked. I really hit the slippery slope this past Arpil when I purchased a box of Upmann #4's and then discovered this site.

I smoke cigars because I like the taste, the smell and the experience of enjoying a fine cigar, either by myself relaxing or with a group of friends at a cookout. I also enjoy the camaraderie among cigar smokers. The camaraderie is the foundation of this site. We all like cigars and share stories, information, join passes and trade with complete strangers in some cases.

Cigar smoking to me can either be an escape from the hustle of life, or a way to celebrate life with friends and family.

Give me a good cigar and a good beer and I'm one happy man.
 
funny, i just posted this on another site.. guess ill put it here too.

A year and 1/2 ago, I got a new shift to work at the rail road. This job put me in a repair truck by myself on sat and sun. I would always turn on the am talk radio and listen while I worked.

One of the shows was/is that cigar Dave show. At that time, I didn't smoke, and hated smokers! first time I heard the show I remember thinking what kind of morons would not only smoke, but spend that kind of money do it! I laughed at this comparisons of cigars to coffee and wine. the science of cigars.

It took about 6 months of listening to the program that I started thinking, hum, I may have to try one for the hell of it. I already had a Simi understanding of what to get, after listing to caller after caller ask the same question of what a newbie should get.

Finally one Saturday I was on a lunch break at my fav grocery store (HE central market) they have a nice walk in humidor. I remember the smell of the humidor well, and the odd feeling of the 70/70% air.

Standing there looking at all the different brands, I was over overwhelmed I was looking for a RyJ reserve real they didn't have it. But they did have an RJR vintage #3. so, i got that one, at 8 bucks! !!! man i have gotten cheap in a year!

I brought it back to work, and after all my work was done I got the cigar out. Now mind you I had never smoked, or drank in my life. this was my first flirting with the "sinful life". So being a goodie 2 shoes my whole life, I know this was a special event.

I didn't have a lighter, so I asked a guy at work. I am embarrassed to say, as I looked at the cigar I didn't know what end to light! from the cigar Dave show I knew something needed cutting, but I didn't know if the end of the cigar needed trimmed back for some reason, or what it the closed end. Lmao.

i had to ask the guy who gave me the lighter. i was relieved when he didn't know for sure, but he thought it was the closed end. we both laughed at out stupidity. i didn't have a cutter, but i had a knife. so carefully i trimmed the end and took a dry puff. interesting i though... hum

A while later I was off by myself and with a glass a tea, I lit up my first cigar. First few puffs were interesting, I was careful though. I loved the feeling of the cigar in my hand, the feel of the smooth warper and watching the swifts of smoke raising. most of all, I loved the relaxed feeling I got.....i really loved this.

I didn't like it when the smoke somehow got up in my sinus, sending me into a sneezing, burning fit. . but I learned not to do that.

That day I came home and looked for Internet sites. Finding cu. now a year later I have several hundred cigars, and the once anti smoker is now known as the cigar guy at work.

Funny how life changes. So, on the 12 of this month, IM going to fire up a RyJ vintage #3 in celebration of my first year as a smoker. anyone who wants to join me in spirit, please do
 
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