What did Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx, Lew Grade, George Burns and any half-dozen Hollywood directors you care to mention have in common? They all smoked cigars: big, thick, expensive cigars, writes Owen Dawson
Some of these heavyweights hated to be seen in public or in photographs without a cigar clenched between fingers or teeth. To moguls, a large Havana suggests power, privilege and prestige. They see it as a status symbol, a statement and an image-maker. Smoking a big cigar is a prestigious public pastime, or so some serious smokers would have us believe. If many people and governments today see cigarette smoking as a socially unacceptable serious health hazard, where does that leave the cigar smoker? By all accounts, totally unconcerned.
Special occasions
Over the past few years cigar culture has expanded at an unprecedented rate in most affluent countries. And with the Celtic Tiger running rampant, Ireland was not going to be left behind. That special cigar for the special occasion - a weddings, a birth, a big business deal, even Christmas - has become closer to the rule than the exception. And I'm not talking about your humble stogy or panatella; I'm talking about Nicaraguan, Dominican Republic, Honduran and especially Cuban. True enthusiasts cannot separate Cuban from cigar. The two words fall in effortlessly alongside port, brandy, after-dinner conversation, good company. Rudyard Kipling, in his long and presumably humorous poem The Betrothed, compared his wife to a Cuban cigar, telling us that:
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.
On the other hand Mark Twain was noted for his preference for really noxious stogies and claimed to have spent his time searching for the very worst cigar in the world and to have found it. Unfortunately, he didn't give us the name.
Nobody knows exactly when the tobacco leaf was discovered but we do know where. The native peoples of Central America were the first to grow and smoke the plant on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. But it wasn't until Christopher Columbus went into the import-export business around 1492 that the rest of the world started to fancy the taste of nicotine. A certain Sir Walter Raleigh also decided to take an interest in the tobacco business and England too fell under the spell of the leaf. Strangely, it was not until about 1762 that cigars arrived in North America, when Israel Putman, later to become an American general in the Revolutionary War, brought some from Cuba. Inevitably, Europe too took to cigars, which became so popular that smoking cars became a feature on Continental trains. Smoking-rooms were introduced into clubs and hotels and with this came the supreme personification of sophistication, the smoking jacket.
What, then, is a good cigar? Sadly, it has nothing to do with the long-held belief that the special quality of a Havana comes from the leaf being rolled on the thighs of dusky maidens. But according to connoisseurs it takes a lot of labour and love to produce a quality product. Good cigars have to be consistent. They also should have the correct weight, length, firmness and smoothness (of the wrapper). The ends must be correctly cut. The cigar should burn well, draw properly and give off a pleasant aroma. They must not be under-filled or they will burn too quickly, nor over-filled, as they will be difficult to draw.
Labels such as Cohiba, Dunhill, Montecristo and Davidoff sell on name alone. Big names, big cigars, big price. And any cigar worthy of the name must be hand-made, of course.
Quality control
No one should one ever, ever test a cigar by rolling it beside the ear (known as listening to the band). Simply squeeze the top between forefinger and thumb and a decent cigar should immediately assume its original shape. Quality control is exercised by professional smokers blind-tasting (if that's the word), who are themselves rigorously examined every six months. The wrapper, incidentally, is the most expensive part of a quality cigar. Finally, the question of whether to smoke a cigar with the band on or off is a matter of personal choice. It is a nonsense to presume it is "bad form" to advertise the brand.
As is only proper, Fidel Castro has his own superlative exclusive Cuban cigars rolled to his personal requirements. He gives some to state visitors and diplomats, though one presumes this largesse does not include his near neighbours in the US. It is still illegal to import Cuban cigars into the States. And American customs officers are very strict about this: some unlucky travellers have bought a handsome box of Cubans in Shannon duty-free shop, only to have them confiscated hours later at JFK airport.
Hotel gathering
Like others who feel socially ostracised, cigar-smokers years ago formed their own union. A sort of a Ku Klux Klan gathering takes place every two months in a smart hotel in Dublin where members, through a thick haze of wafting smoke, discuss the merits of a carefully chosen cigar. One recent choice was a Partagas, Serie D, No 4 - which, when decoded, means a beautiful, cool, if expensive, smoke. A pianist in the corner tinkled his way through his repertoire, which aptly included Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Perhaps the biggest surprise among the motley attendance was the number of women who were self-evidently relishing their cigars. And why not? For the days are long gone when tuxedoed gentlemen excused themselves from the dining-table to adjourn to the billiards room for a post-prandial cigar and brandy.
Now that stricter anti-smoking laws are promised, who can say that future cigar soirées will not have to be held on top of Croagh Patrick, though lighting up may be a problem?