The care in lighting a cigar is the culmination of a long history of care. A cigar, a good cigar, must never be dry and must never be wet. Balance is everything, as, they said in the old days feeding liquor to a woman at a cocktail party: err in one direction and the party is ruined; err in the other and the woman is ruined.
—“Copenhagen: After luncheon at Carlsberg Brewery the ladies smoke cigars. They are guests from the Virgin Islands–once the Danish West Indies. Signed in ink on recto of the print in lower right margin. Fritz Henle was born on June 9, 1909 in Dortmund, Germany. About 1928 he took up photography. Henle immigrated to New York City and the United States in 1936 and became a naturalized citizen in 1942. He was a founding member and trustee of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP). He worked as a photographer for Life magazine from 1937 to 1942. —
A humidity carefully maintained at around 70 per cent is about right, for both cigars, and in the era of Don Draper, also women. Incidentally this balance cannot be achieved,for cigars at least, by wrappings. A cigar that is wrapped in cellophane, or an aluminum or metal tube, or any such frippery, is no longer a cigar. It is a dead leaf, and should be decently buried.
—I know. In just about every Hollywood movie where someone lights up a cigar, the weapon of choice is a trusty match. But our advice is to forget the match and go with a butane torch lighter.
You should avoid cigarette lighters, because the cigar may take on the flavor of the lighter fluid. This is not to say it will ruin the cigar because it will not, but why muck up the flavor of your cherished smoke even for a few minutes?—click image for source…
There is much more that can be said- about the shape of a cigar, the ritual that accompanies the selection of a cigar, and the manner in which expelled smoke is most efficiently directed upward toward the nostrils. But what of the question of whether a gentleman should offer a cigar to a lady? The general answer is no. For one thing there is the matter of cigar ash.
—“If I had taken my doctor’s advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn’t have lived to go to his funeral.” – (98 year old) George Burns – See more at: http://cigarbrief.com/cigars/famous-cigar-quotes/2918/#sthash.AOJhbho7.dpuf—
The ash on a cigar plays a definite role in cigar smoking; by radiating heat from the end of a cigar, it helps keep the cigar cool, and it is vitally important that the cigar remain cool. For this reason, ash must never be tapped from a cigar. It must be ignored. Ultimately, of course, a long ash will topple of its own weight, falling on the smoker’s vest. Usually, ladies do not wear vests, and probably should not be encouraged to do so. Hence by some inexorable logic, they should not smoke cigars. There are other reasons as well, all of which may be summed up in the statement that by giving a cigar to a lady one reduces the likelihood of obtaining the maximum gratification from either, according to cigar lore.
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…“The only way to break a bad habit was to replace it with a better habit.” (explaining why he switched from cigarettes to cigars) – Jack Nicholson
“A good cigar is like a beautiful chick with a gre
ody who also knows the American League box scores.” – M*A*S*H, Klinger, Bug-Out 1976“A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.” – Groucho Marx
“Ah, if only I had brought a cigar with me! This would have established my identity.” – Charles Dickens
“Eating and sleeping are the only activities that should be allowed to interrupt a man’s enjoyment of his cigar.” – Mark Twain
“Given the choice between a woman and a cigar, I will always choose the cigar.” – Groucho Marx
“I drink a great deal. I sleep a little, and I smoke cigar after cigar. That is why I am in two-hundred-percent form.” – Winston Churchill
– See more at: http://cigarbrief.com/cigars/famous-cigar-quotes/2918/#sthash.AOJhbho7.dpuf
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