Like champagne
perfectionists who insist that the best bubbly can come only from the Champagne
province of France, cigar purists insist
that cigars can, and do come only from Cuba.
The best cigar that the country has to offer - what connoisseurs lovingly call the puro -
is made entirely by hand and completely of tobaccos grown in the warm earth of the Vuelta Abajo, a portion
of western Cuba's Pifiar del Rio province.
There the climate and soil are perfect for growing cigar tobaccos. The temperature ranges between 85 degree F
and 90 degree F during the day; nights are cool; and humidity hovers
consistently around 80%. The soil is
sandy and light, which makes it capable of retaining moisture from the dew and
from the frequent but not drenching rains.
But is the
Cuban cigar still king? Is it worth the
price, which can run as high as $15 per cigar at Dunhill's in London? Has international politics severely limited
the cigar lover's access to the best?
The answer to all three questions is yes.
People with
palates only for puros often name the Cuban Montecristo No. 1 as the world's
finest cigar. It is pungently aromatic,
boldly flavored, beautifully constructed and classic corona size - about 6 1/2 inches long and a 42-ring
gauge, meaning that the cigar is 42/64 of an inch thick - or roughly the
diameter of a dime.
Most
connoisseurs favour coronas - stogies ranging from 40 to 44 in ring gauge and
from five inches to 7 1/2 inches in length.
Such cigars combine full flavor with a moderate burning pace and
temperature. Thinner cigars delivers
less taste, hence viewed with a measure of disdain by serious smokers. They also burn faster and hotter than coronas
do. Cigar thicker than coronas often
called double coronas or Churchills, are as flavorful as coronas but burn
slower and cooler.
Among the
double coronas, the best may be the seven-inch-long, 47-ring-gauge Davidoff Dom
Perignon. This stupefying expensive
stogie is a specially made house brand produced in Havana to the specifications
of Swiss tobacconist Zino Davidoff, the man known among cigar connoisseurs as
the high priest of the puro.
Many cigar
aficionados, however, insist that the puro's excellence is no longer something
you can rely on. Quality control in
Cuban factories, they argue, has suffered since the revolution. Some experts
further say the puro is losing its competitive edge altogether. Cuban tobacco
growers appear not to have benefited as much as farmers elsewhere from
agricultural advances. More important,
many of the first families of the pre-Castro Cuban cigar industry fled the
island at the start of the revolution, taking with them tobacco seeds and
irreplaceable manufacturing wisdom.
These craftsmen set up plantations and factories in Honduras, Nicaragua,
Mexico, and Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Canary Islands, where climate
and soil conditions are much the same as in Cuba. Now, having had more than two decades to work
the soil & develop a skilled labor force, they produce top quality,
handmade cigars for U.S. companies and market them under the classic old Cuban
brand names - Partagas, Hoyo de
Monterry, H. Upmann, Punch and Montecristo.
The Partagas
line, produced in the Dominican Republic for the General Cigar Co., is widely
regarded as the most consistently excellent. The most popular size is the 6 3/4
inch-long, 43-ring-gauge Partagas No.1. Pleasingly aromatic, it is filled with
roughly equal amounts of Mexican, Dominican and Jamaican tobaccos and is
wrapped in a leaf from Cameroon. This blend produces a
cigar that is prized because
it hits
a desirable midpoint in flavour between boldness and mildness.
Like Cuban cigars, it is firmly packed, making it occasionally somewhat
hard-drawing.
People who
prefer a milder, easier-drawing stogie
couldn't go wrong with any of
Dunhill's superb Montecruz cigars. Made
in the Dominican Republic from Central and South American filler
and Cameroon wrapper, the Montecruz line offers a wider
range of sizes than
does Partagas. The 6 1/2 inch-long,
42-ring-gauge No.210 is the classic.
The Montecruz has a delicate wrapper, which has a tendency to crack and
peel.
Other excellent
cigars on the mild side include
the extremely light-tasting Don Diegos; the smooth-drawing Royal
Jamaicas and the exquisitely
constructed Macanudos, made in
Jamaica from Jamaican and South American filler and
Connecticut shade grown wrapper. Macanudos' fiercely loyal followers
often prefer the 6
1/2-inch-long, 42-ring-gauge Baron de Rothschild corona.
so-� Z e u ��O �� This stupefying expensive
stogie is a specially made house brand produced in Havana to the specifications
of Swiss tobacconist Zino Davidoff, the man known among cigar connoisseurs as
the high priest of the puro.
Many cigar
aficionados, however, insist that the puro's excellence is no longer something
you can rely on. Quality control in
Cuban factories, they argue, has suffered since the revolution. Some experts
further say the puro is losing its competitive edge altogether. Cuban tobacco
growers appear not to have benefited as much as farmers elsewhere from
agricultural advances. More important,
many of the first families of the pre-Castro Cuban cigar industry fled the
island at the start of the revolution, taking with them tobacco seeds and
irreplaceable manufacturing wisdom.
These craftsmen set up plantations and factories in Honduras, Nicaragua,
Mexico, and Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Canary Islands, where climate
and soil conditions are much the same as in Cuba. Now, having had more than two decades to work
the soil & develop a skilled labor force, they produce top quality,
handmade cigars for U.S. companies and market them under the classic old Cuban
brand names - Partagas, Hoyo de
Monterry, H. Upmann, Punch and Montecristo.
