Cigars vary considerably in appearance, from unbanded and deformed cheroots to the most elegantly packaged boutique brands.  The Flor de Copan brand falls nearer the latter, with each cigar delicately wrapped in its own cedar sheath held together by two bands on either end.  This cedar wrap is in addition to a more traditional band near to the cigar’s foot.  While this could potentially be used as a tactic for hiding flawed wrapper leaves, this was not the case for this cigar, whose construction and aesthetic beauty are superb; the …

I’m a fan of big cigars; I like how they burn cool and evolve, I like how they feel in my hand, and I like how they force me to slow down and relax.  Once in a while, however, circumstances arise in which I want to enjoy a cigar in a fixed time slot, perhaps at lunch or during a coffee break.  I hate to take one of my prized toros, churchills, or even robustos, and smoke the first third.  Rather, I prefer to keep on hand some smaller cigars, …

Every year Habanos SA releases a set of regional edition (edición regional) cigars; if you’re lucky, there’ll be a few in your country.  While the worldwide global brands (Cohiba, Montecristo, RyJ, Partagas, and Hoyo de Monterrey) are excluded, these cigars generally include some great offerings from Bolivar, Punch, Ramon Allones, and other Habanos SA brands.  While most will only ever sample their own country’s regional editions, the internet now makes it possible to sample just about any of them.  However, I have seen a 10 pack of the Bolivar featured …

Cigar marketing tends towards its own particular niche, capitalizing on the image and lifestyle of figures like Winston Churchill, Earnest Hemingway and Rudyard Kipling (Gentlemen?) Cigar advertisers usually target their premium lines to promote this image, yet Swisher Sweet owns 20% market share in the US. Other similar products have taken completely different approaches. Wine marketing uses cute animals on the labels to give the buyer comfort about a product they know little about, or labels that broadcast the producers’ environmental sensibilities. The current trend in men’s products is to prey on …

One of the most recognizable cigar brands around the world, Romeo y Julieta has been around since 1875, and was the preferred cigar of Winston Churchill, for whom the brand’s flagship vitola is now named. RyJ was drastically affected by the Cuban revolution, with there now being a Dominican version and a Cuban version; the latter is the focus of this review.  The brand makes over 20 vitolas, and regularly has limited editions, including the delicious Duke (a robusto extra).  While in the airport lately, I thought I’d check out …

When the wife takes one of those shopping trips south of the border and you end up as the chauffeur, make sure you take advantage of the situation and make a detour to a local cigar shop. In my case, being from Vancouver, I’m talking about the Fairhaven Smoke Shop. Set in the quaint tourist village of Fairhaven, near Bellingham, you can expect turn-of-the-century buildings and good restaurants – just the recipe to distract the lady from the true nature of the visit. On my most recent trip, Michael pointed …