I used to like cigars every once in a while but a few years back I quit chewing Copenhagen and I don’t want to risk getting back into that wonderful stuff.
Exactly. Large, dick-like cigars were not what the ladies were smoking when it was considered edgy for ladies to smoke cigars.
Large, dick-like cigars are best reserved for ugly older gentlemen with a paunch and a wart on the nose. Picture J.P. Morgan or Antonin Scalia. Because most of us don’t look at guys like that and think “Mmmmmmm…I wish he was givin’ me a beej right now.”
YMMV.
Not in the rain. I just don’t have the nose for it…
When I was in the Navy, we used to have these formal military-only unit dinners referred to as a “Dining-In.” There was a lot of ceremony and tradition involved, including making toasts and drinking huge quantities of port wine. At some point in the evening, the “smoking lamp” was lit, and everyone lit up cigars. So I got used to smoking the occasional cigar.
I would smoke 1-2 cigars every year or so, until some time later I met a fellow Scout leader (and parent) who always wanted a friend to smoke cigars with on camp-outs after the boys all went to sleep. I therefore found myself smoking much more frequently than before (i.e. 1-2 cigars every month).
At some point, though, I decided that whatever bit of pleasure I got from cigars wasn’t worth the health risk. Also, I wanted to apply for more life insurance and wanted to be able to honestly list that I was a non-smoker. So I quit cold-turkey and haven’t had one since.
I still have a humidor with a lot of old, expensive, and likely dried-out cigars in it.
There were an awful lot of those being smoked where I was. Ugh.
I’d go with the yes, a few times and I was neutral. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. It was more trying to have a stopgap thing when I didn’t have any cigarettes and wanted a smoke and someone around me offered to share a cigar.
I haven’t had one since I quit smoking.
I like cigars; I LOVE being around other people who like cigars. When the Big Smelly Cigar Store was still open, and my friends there still alive, I was smoking every day or more than one some days. Now with that gone I’m about 1 a week or so. At least in my experience the smell from better cigars never lingered much; my wife is super-sensative to smoke and she couldn’t always tell if I had been there. Maybe I spend too much time around the Abenaki and Delaware but I really find something comforting and centering in a good long smoke.
Only with the (kid’s) in-laws at gatherings. So, 1-3 is right. I never really smoked [B. Lugosi] Cigarettes [/B. Lugosi], but cigars sometimes, yeah. I had a thing for Swisher Sweets (heh), in my pretentious years. Cigar “aroma” reminds me of my father. he didn’t smoke them. But he took me to guy places when I was a boy (1950’s). We lived in suburban territory, but he would take me downtown with him on a Saturday morning to visit his buddies, by the train station with the smell of creosote and deisel. I remember an old barbershop and the ever present smell of…being with guys back then. Cigar smoke, sweat, urine and whatever exotic barber fragrances were present. Actually, that also applied to the train station and any bar we my pass by - or through. And, of course his friends might smoke them. I don’t remember him lighting, though. But the smell takes me back to him.
I’ve had a few cigars over the years. Semi-enjoyed a few, but it’s never been my thing.
I smoke a pipe on occasion, which I vastly prefer.
I’ve smoked a few over the years. Didn’t like any of them. Not even the ones that I was told were really, really good Honduran/Cuban/whatever cigars (not even the genuine Cohiba I smoked on the beach in Varadero, Cuba).
I was, until a few years ago, a cigarette smoker, so I have nothing against smoking, and I don’t find it inherently disgusting. I really loved cigarettes (or at least some brands of cigarettes).
But cigars? No, not for me.
I used to review cigars for a publication (no, not Cigar Aficionado). I knew a lot going in, and I learned a lot during my time reviewing. At any given time, I’ve got four to five humidors full of premium handrolled cigars.
They’re not for everybody, and they are certainly an acquired taste. But I like them.
Tried a few Swisher Sweets when I was young and dumb. Mostly, I found cigars to be nasty when I was a smoker, and even more so now.
You need another poll option: used to smoke them regularly but not anymore.
When I was an uber-cool teenager ( 
) I smoked cigars as my puff of choice. I didn’t smoke cigarettes then but would go through a ten-pack of Wee Willem cigars every couple of days. (they were the size of a regular cigarette).
Eventually I got the hint that I stunk to high-heavens so switched to roll-your-own tobacco, and from there onto tailor made cigarettes. Haven’t smoked a cigar in maybe 35yrs now.
Here in my country, the cliche “Have a cigar” when waiting outside the delivery room was never popular. But when my boss announced his wife gave birth, I immediately ribbed him, “You owe me a cigar.” The poor kid gave me (an expensive) one the following day.
When I was younger - and well before they were “cool” and “edgy” - a roommate and I used to smoke them. I enjoyed good ones, and never made the mistake of trying to inhale. But the pleasure was not hard to forego, when I got my own place. I’ve always been lucky in that alcohol and tobacco have never triggered any addictive centers in my brain. (My addictions run to sugary things and chocolate.) Except for snuff - tried it once, found myself needing to do it again the next night, so I put that stuff away for good.
I like the smell of pipe tobacco, so I tried a pipe once. Hard to pack, hard to keep lit, and, as good as it smells, pipe tobacco tastes like crap.
I like a good quality cigar now and then with a drink, maybe 1-3 times a year. Partly for the taste (crap cigar with good booze will ruin the booze) but mostly for the state of mind it seems to go with when I do light one up. Same thing with pipe smoking, though the state of mind is different from that of cigar smoking.
I knew a guy a while back who liked to smoke rather expensive cigars, and he’d offer them to guests because “I don’t like to be the only one in the room smoking a cigar.” I smoked a few of his highfalutin cigars, and here’s what I learned.
A really good cigar tastes better than it smells. I haven’t seen him in decades, and I haven’t smoked a cigar since then.
Well, no, I’d suggest that pipes and cigars are about the same.
When my Dad taught me how to smoke pipes and cigars, he partially did so to teach me to enjoy tobacco and the time it took to enjoy it. Dad’s lessons did not involve cigarettes containing flue-cured and navy-cut tobacco that was meant to be inhaled for the nicotine rush; rather, to Dad, tobacco was like a fine wine or whiskey–meant to be sipped and enjoyed for flavour, rather than any kind of rush.
Thanks to Dad, I learned how to smoke a pipe and a cigar, and I further learned about handrolled Havanas, and how they are different from what we came to call “drugstore cigars.” I learned pipe tobaccos, the difference between a shag cut and a “ready-rubbed,” and a flake, and aromatics and English blends. I learned that pipes are works of art that are meant to be used–and one of my favorite pipes was made by a 17-year-old apprentice pipesmith. It smokes beautifully.
But to get back to what guestchaz alluded to: it’s the state of mind. If I set out to enjoy a cigar or a pipe, I set aside the next couple of hours. I ignore the telephone, I don’t care about the TV, I pay no attention to texts and e-mails. My tobacco time is my time. I enjoy my cigar or pipe with a good book, or perhaps a crossword puzzle; but regardless, a pipe or cigar allows me to define “my time,” and nobody else can make inroads upon it.
A Dominican Republic Cohiba is a smooth, mild-bodied cigar. Beats the Cuban hands down. It fully compliments the splurge of having a shot of this. Yummy.