Tommy Zarzecki (aka Tommy Zman)
Hello, my name is Tommy Zman and I am a Cigar Pornographer.

A freshly rolled, un-banded cigar just might be the most beautiful sight in the world to those of us who suffer from this affliction, and I know there are many of you out there who share my tobacco disorder. One look at a shining oily stick can induce uncontrollable cravings, and an unwrapped naked bundle is enough to send the lot of us into therapy. Upon cracking open a new box and taking in that first whiff of aged leaf and cedar goodness, well, like the song goes, “Somebody get me a doctor” because I am in the midst of pure unadulterated wanton lust.

A lot of you fellow degenerates like to post photos of the sticks you’re enjoying on web portals like FaceBook and online forums, and that is admittedly a real weakness for me. It’s such a weakness that I too must break out the smart phone and take snapshots of my heavily tanned maduros in uncompromising positions, all while posting such comments like, “Is that the tightest white ash you’ve ever seen?” or, “Is that a Honduran in your humidor or are you just happy to see me?”

Hey, I told you I was a sicko. But the real point here is that I love it all with zero remorse and have absolutely no intentions of stopping this self-induced madness.

I have often wondered why cigar smoking brings about such unbridled passion amongst those of us who lust the leaf. While so many of us are addicted to food, booze, gambling, and top-heavy hotties who curve in all the best places, cigars create an unexplainable camaraderie, bonding people together who would normally never associate in the same circles. And while I can’t even attempt to explain this odd phenomena – especially to those who don’t smoke – all I know is that it makes me feel good, and that’s good enough reason for me to continue with my smoky ways.

Another piece to this perverse sickness that so many of us share, is our bizarre behavior and the rituals we go through when the catalogs arrive in the mail. It seems that all the online purveyors of hand rolled tobacco goodness purposely print and mail their catalogs at the same exact time, causing sensory overload for whack jobs like me. I find myself lurking at the front door and peering through the window like a stalker, waiting for the local carrier to pull up to the mailbox and deliver my fix. As he drives away I run to the street, fling open the small metal door and pant like a pitbull as I rummage through the glossy, multi-page rags. I then rush back into the house and it’s straight into the bathroom, spending hours pouring over the photos and colorful descriptions written about criollo and corojo leaf being kissed by the morning Honduran sun. Oh my God, is it getting hot in here, or what?

Well, the wife and kids get pretty pissed when I occupy the commode for hours on end, so I’ll take my obligatory dinner break, then it’s off to the back patio with a bottle of hootch, a handful of full-bodied, post meal sticks, and those precious tobacco-laden rags. After hours of drooling and grunting, all lathered up like a wolverine in heat, the worst thing I can possibly do is have my credit card anywhere near me. God knows I am a weak man and have been known to skip a few bills for the month, all so the UPS dude can deliver several heavy boxes that I’ll need to sign for in a couple of days. Come on, heat and electric is so overrated.

And let’s talk about what Brown can do for me. Several days after ordering a hefty bounty of deliciously aged leaf in a myriad of sizes, shapes, and colors, I can hardly do any work as I keeping turning my head back, staring into the driveway, impatiently waiting for the delivery dude to drop the bomb. Then it happens, the doorbell rings and I race so fast that my feet don’t even touch the steps. I grab the handle and fling open the door only to find the neighbor’s eight-year old freckle-face rug rat pinching me once again for Girl Scout cookies.

“Hi Mr. Zman, would you like to buy some Samoas and Do Si Dos this year?”

“GOOD GOD, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YA FRIGGIN’ YARD APE!," I yell at the top of my lungs, as pure delirium overtakes any sense of reason I once had. “Unless you’re peddling Alec Bradley, Joya de Nic, Drew Estate, or Tatuaje, you’re NO GOOD TO ME!”

And of course, this highly sensitive kid runs off, balling like a friggin’ baby as here I am left high and dry still waiting for my Nicaraguan drop. These kids today really need to grow a pair. Okay, so in about 15 minutes my wife is gonna have to deal with a phone call from the little scout’s irate mom, but I’ve got more important things to worry about, meaning a UPS guy who’s late as all hell with my tobacco porn stash.

“What the hell are you doing on the front porch for four hours,” my wife demands to know. “It’s Sunday, and UPS doesn’t deliver today!”

“AHHHHHHHHHH ….. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” as I collapse into the fetal position wondering how on earth I’ll make it ‘til Monday afternoon.

Hey, come on, now… I told you I was a sicko, a real live perv when it comes to premium hand rolled cigars. But I have to say that I can’t thank you enough for listening – letting me rant on while sharing my inner demons as this was most definitely a cathartic event for me. Wow, I feel cleansed.

On a final note, if you find yourself with the same affliction, an uncontrollable lustful desire for aged Latino leaf, well, maybe we can start a support group or something. Yeah, you know, that might really be a great idea… gathering together with others who are just like us: smoke-craved sickos. We can share our stories and our idiosyncrasies when it comes to cigars. Wow, I think that just might be the answer to my… oops… wait a minute… doorbell’s ringing… gotta gooooooooooo!

Tommy Zman. is truly an obsessive enjoyer of life. Growing up in the bowels of northern New Jersey, parented by an eccentric Polish father and a neurotic Italian mother, what else could this man possibly be other than a humorist? Zman’s a "real" guy – someone who considers himself a throwback to a time when men were kings of the castle, and smoking a cigar in public didn’t label you an outcast and a pariah. He’s totally old-school, a down to earth guy with traditional values. Visit Zman’s Blog: Rants From a Social Cromag, and see his work @ www.tommyzman.com Wanna reach the Zman? —> zmanmediagroup@optimum.net Find Tommy Zman on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter.

Genya is enjoying a sunny winter day on the roof overlooking the city while she smokes her cigar. The sun warms her up as she opens her coat to reveal that she’s only wearing her black lingerie beneath.

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It may be cold outside, but it’s hot in here, so let’s take off our clothes and lounge with a cigar. Blue-Eyed Blonde Cigar Babe Ira is enjoying relaxing in her pink undies while smoking a spicy rosado-wrapped toro cigar.

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Smoking a cigar makes Aran feel naughty, so she took off her clothes and is sporting her Christmas lingerie. We even dressed the set in Christmas colors.

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Cigar Babe Sofy returns smoking a medium-bodied toro cigar while alternating between smiling and pouting in true Cigar Babe flirty fashion.

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My journey down memory lane with these old smokes is not simply a waltz with nostalgia, but something a bit more purposeful. I’ve sampled many very good cigars over the past few years, and a great many more that have not much impressed me. But, even among many of the better smokes, as much as I’ve enjoyed them, I’ve continued to find something missing, a fundamental aspect of what caused me to go geeky over cigars in the 80s, and is almost universally absent in most of the modern cigars I’ve been smoking. Ever the explorer, I did the only thing I could do to turn back the clock, investigating if this ephemeral quality was simply some characteristic of a middle-aged guy’s fuzzy watercolour reminiscences of a romantic past, or if there might be some merit to my discontent; I opened the vault, my mother’s old freezer I’d converted to a humidor when it gave up the ghost, quite a few years before she did.

And, there it was, even in some thirty year old Upmanns and Romeos some might consider past their prime. It’s more than just the results of careful aging. That intrinsic, elusive richness was still there, a lingering, oily, mesmerising flavour that still, to this very day, brings joy to my palate. I can’t quite describe it. It’s a muskiness (not mustiness) that those wonderful cigars used to mark their territory, an almost butter caramel sweetness, but more primal, more meaty. It was a creaminess, so often talked about and rarely delivered, that was palpable. It’s that umami thing in smoke. It gave these cigars a wonderful front of the palate teasing, but more importantly, a mouth-filling finish that was, and still is, even in these mature sticks, so enticing, so satisfying.

In what, to me, is a ludicrous arms race where so many makers are chasing adjectives like fatter, longer, stronger, spicier, powerful, they seem to have lost track of some of the adjectives I might apply to these old beauties; sultry, seductive, provocative. This wasn’t a rare quality, either; it was almost commonplace amongst the quality marques 30 years ago, but it’s all but gone missing in too many of the modern mash-ups of multinational leaf, rolled into burrito sized spice-bombs with enough “power” to stop a stampeding rhino dead in his tracks. I’ll be clear. I do not want a cigar to punch me in the face, kick me in the boy-bits, or otherwise cause me physical distress. I smoke for pleasure, not pain.

I’m not just whinging, here. This is not the same as the lamentation of those who say that the only cigars worth smoking were the top-tier Habanos of the golden age, and damn that embargo, though I will say that the best of the Cuban smokes I’ve enjoyed also possess something of this wonderful quality. This has nothing at all to do with not being able to produce cigars that have the characteristics I crave. Those “old” cigars were made from leaf that could just as easily be grown, processed, fermented and blended today as was done 30 years ago. It’s simply not being done. The dinosaurs amongst us are being largely ignored by marketeers who are chasing a new and growing crop of cigar smokers who never had the pleasure of those old beauties.

It’s not a new thing. It began during the so-called boom years, when every brand started attempting to keep its grip on market share in an increasingly wide field, not with their well-deserved reputations, but with a fusillade of line-extensions and “new” blends hoping to compete with new brands by “cigar makers” falling off the tobacco truck at every turn. And, with all these new makers came new consumers chasing new trends, leaving the old standards, apparently, to be left twisting in the winds of change.

Remember “New Coke,” and the uproar it created? (if you’re under 35, you won’t. Look it up.) It was disastrous, or so it seemed. But, it turned out to be powerful marketing stuff. After the complaints reached a high enough pitch, the manufacturer responded with a new New Coke, called, interestingly, Coke Classic.

Something similar is perhaps at play in the cigar industry. Hearing the complaints of long-standing customers over these “improved” blends, some producers attempted to appease the crowds with supposed recreations of the old lines, the cigar industry’s performance of the “Coke Classic” dance. But, just as with the soft drink, these impostors weren’t really exactly the same. “You’ll get used to them.” Not me. My inner-curmudgeon is alive and well, and still longing for those old recipes, dammit.

I’m sure it had gone on before I started smoking cigars, but my awareness of this phenomenon began in the years after one of my favourites, the H. Upmann 2000, a brilliant lonsdale packed in cedar chests, was discontinued. I bought what I could when I leaned they’d be disappearing, figuring they’d hold me until something came along to rightfully take their place. There were still other wonderful smokes to soothe the loss, but nothing quite hit that sweet spot for me the way the 2000 did. Unfortunately, it was just the first casualty of many that I experienced. Soon, the Partagas line went through changes in formulation, and then Romeo y Julieta, and on and on. These changes came too fast to keep up with, and neither my freezer or my wallet were fat enough to sufficiently insure my future smoking pleasure. And, the ever-growing parade of line-extensions became like Macy’s on New Year’s Day.

Some years ago, I went off to see if there might not be another Upmann with the same flavour, the same engaging aroma, the same richness. I was interrogated, “Which Upmann do you want?” The young cigar guru rattled off a phone book of line extensions, then looked into my dazed and confused eyes, waiting for my response.

“I have no idea. I just want an H. Upmann lonsdale, or a corona, that tastes like the old ones before I needed a field guide to identify my cigar.”

Puzzled silence.

Now, the “Original” has been added to the phone book, but it doesn’t have a Cameroon wrapper like the real original did, and the cigar with a Cameroon wrapper has a very different blend. Now, the brand’s identity is so plagued by some sort of multiple-personality disorder, it’s almost meaningless. You can’t tell the players without a program.

So, is the future sorrow that I predicted up there in the first paragraph sealed? I’m down to the last dozen of those beautiful 2000s, and other faves in the vault are equally endangered. Tragically, if I didn’t have this dwindling supply of now-vintage cigars with which to rekindle those sparks of memory smouldering in my not yet addled mind, I might have more easily just attributed my malaise to nostalgia, to the fact that pastures always seemed greener “back in the day,” or to just becoming like my parents, who endlessly regaled me with poetic waxing over the better times. But, no. It’s real, and my dalliance over the past weeks has proved it.

I’m not quite saying those old cigars were better, overall, than today’s best. In fact, with a broader palette of leaf from which to draw, some blenders are doing remarkable things, with flavour profiles that are complex, interesting, engaging. There are some truly exciting blends being produced. But to me, those silky, oily wrappers robed a mystery that I still long for, and cannot seem to find, except in a few luxury products that I simply can’t afford to smoke. And, I’m not enthusiastic about jumping on the trend wagon, embracing the softball bats that are increasingly popular, gobbled-up by the apparently growing segment of the market (and scoffed by more than a few veteran rollers). I want some really good, reasonably priced cigars like they made “in the old days.”

Lately, though, I am a little hopeful. Trends do follow cycles, and there’s only so far things can go in their current direction. Maybe an 888 or 999 stick will signal the end of the silliness, and things will start to get back to something resembling normalcy. Maybe then, cigar makers, and smokers alike, will again focus on the classic shapes (there’s are reasons they’ve been around so long) and sophisticated flavours over hugeness and bollocks-busting strength.

One recent joyful discovery, in fact, is fueling some provisional and measured optimism comes in the form of the new Mario Palomino line, the revival of a brand that’s been in a coma for about a decade. Made in Nicaragua, these are blended with some genuine Jamaican leaf in the filler. They’re not quite the Royal Jamaicas of my youth, but they have more than a hint of their wonderful, deep character, a nice dose of what I’ve been missing for so long, and a reasonable price tag.

Maybe there’s hope, after all. Anyone listening?
-glp

Gregory L. Pease Associate Editor. Greg joins us for regular cigar reviews, his monthly editorial column, "Up in Smoke," and the occasional feature article, bringing over 30 years of deep passion for the leaf to our team. Prior to becoming the founder and principal alchemist behind the pipe blends of G.L. Pease Artisanal Tobaccos (est. 1999), he’d been a pipe and cigar aficionado since his college days, and spent time working at the legendary Drucquer & Sons Tobacconist in Berkeley, California to support his affliction. He is widely educated on tobacco and all things epicurean, is an experienced writer, and has quite a refined palate. He is also a wine and spirits geek, and a gourmet cook.

Cigar Babe Faina Relaxes on the Couch with a Corona Gorda. Faina has sultry big brown eyes, and pouty lips wrapped around a corona gorda cigar as she relaxes on the couch in her pretty polka dot dress with stockings and heels. Nice!

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One of the things we love about December is that it’s the time the ladies wear their boots. ‘Nuff said.

Check out Cigar Babe Milana smoking her cigar while wearing boots, and booty shorts.

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The particular stick I tested was The Culture, a 6.5 by 54 toro gorda. The wrapper was typical of top-quality Connecticut; thin, a light golden color and few noticeable veins. The aroma of the unlit cigar was hay-like with a little earthiness. I used a double guillotine to shave the top of the cap as I don’t like punches for larger ring gauges. The pre-light draw was free and easy, almost a bit too easy, but the cigar was uniformly firm, so my concerns were somewhat assuaged. The same notes I detected in the unlit aroma returned; hay and earth, with an additional grassy element creeping in. I toasted the foot and lit up.

The first few puffs exhibited a unique flavor profile. I got more of the hay and grass notes (in a pleasant, not-too-bitter herbal way), plus an oaky hint with some leather. Although I expected a mild smoke, the Costa Rican binder and Columbian, Mexican, Honduran and Nicaraguan filler blend raised the power up to a medium-strength level, with more body than the vast majority of blond wrapper cigars.

The chunky stick turned out to be quite well-made, and burned nicely straight. The flavor became richer and fuller, while maintaining the same profile, but about an inch into the cigar, a mild white pepper note popped up and remained for the rest of the journey, though never in an intrusive way. The oak element became a bit more like cedar after the first half, but the balance stayed true.

The smoke had a light aroma, but lingered for a while, and I was pleased with the thick and creamy clouds. In the last third, a bitter element developed that I found somewhat discordant with the rest of the flavors, and the intensity toward the end didn’t help with those clashing tastes.

In summary, a mostly positive experience that would have been better if I had stopped just before the burn reached the band. The appearance was nice, even though the band is rather ordinary looking. I’ll give it 12 out of 15.

The construction was solid, and the burn was true, so there’s no fault to be found here, earning it 32 out of 35. Just a little note here: As with most Connecticut-grown shade wrappers, the leaf is extremely thin and fragile, almost like onion skin, so care must be exercised in handling the cigars or cracked, flaking wrappers will be the result.

I expected to give the flavor and aroma a superb score, but that last hint of bitter herbs near the end sullied the experience. I would have written it off as an anomaly, but I smoked a second, and it happened again within a quarter-inch of the same spot. For that reason, I can only give the flavor and aroma a 40 of 50, for a still respectable 84. The experience may be a bit different with some of the other vitolas in the line; one of the other shapes might deliver a better (or worse) smoke.

Overall rating: 84

6.5×54
Wrapper: Connecticut
Binder: Costa Rica
Filler: Columbia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras

Buy the Alec Bradley Maxx Connecticut Here

Russ Ouellette is the blender/creator of the Hearth & Home series of pipe tobaccos for Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe and www.pipesandcigars.com in Albany, NY. He has been a cigar smoker and pipe tobacco blender for over 30 years. Russ will be contributing articles in several areas starting with reviewing cigars that are the best bang for the buck – something we anticipate many readers will be interested in during these challenging economic times.

Buy the Alec Bradley Maxx Connecticut Here

Remember the good old days when you could actually smoke in your office? Well, you still can here at the Cigar Chronicles photo studios. You can even lay on the desks as Klin demonstrates.

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