The film, Blue in the Face, is a strange sort of sequel. It’s a companion piece to the previously reviewed film Smoke, with both titles being released within months of  each other in 1995.
From every frame the film exudes this feeling that the project was a true labor of love for everyone involved, and it has a very collaborative feel to it. Which sounds redundant given that film is a medium that depends on a great many people to bring it to fruition. But in this particular case it’s very …

The movie Smoke, released in 1995, is a character driven intimate film that has as its central character a cigar shop in Brooklyn, New York.
Harvey Keitel plays the storeowner, one Auggie Wren. In Keitel’s capable hands he’s portrayed as a loveable rascal, the kind of guy who has seen it all before and doesn’t take crap from anyone.
His little cigar shop is a real neighborhood place and the regulars constantly shuffle in and out of the store for their tobacco fix. They really don’t do much other then hang around …

There are few things worse than cheap restaurant ashtrays (non-smoking establishments being one); at home, one is not bound to convention: metal, plastic, wood, anything will do.  At its simplest, an ashtray should incite one to smoke a cigar.  It should beg to hold your stogies, giving them room to breath while cradling them comfortably.  Without an ashtray, it is too easy to smoke a cigar too fast, causing the cigar to burn hot and become bitter.
How then, do you find an ashtray to impassion the wayward cigar smoker?  Firstly, …

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 …

How much do cigars vary from one size to the next?  How about between the same cigar with a different wrapper? While I’ve experienced these situations myself, it was usually on different days, accompanied by different foods and moods, and hence a clear comparison wasn’t possible.  To address this, a few friends and I decided it was time to get deeper into this issue, and have a herf devoted to one type of cigar – the Taboo Limited Reserve.  There were 3 of us smoking, selecting a Maduro Toro, Havana …

I can vividly recall walking into City Cigar in Vancouver for the first time – the sights, the smells, the people. I remember being hesitant, not because I was fearful, but because I wasn’t sure of the norms in a cigar shop or lounge.  While I’ve made more than a few visits to cigar stores since, it still can be a bit tricky to feel out the vibe in a given place.  Add to that difficulties with some states and provinces allowing smoking in cigar lounges and others not.  …