Hi
I'm a geek and I love sigars so I guess this is the right place for me. I'm not a seasoned cigar smoker, actually I got serious just this summer.
I'm 60 years old and I stopped smoking sigarettes fourteen years ago after having smoked for 33 years. I have never appreciated filtered sigarettes, I preferred to roll my own and was steadily smoking about a pouch a week (~50 sigarettes) all the time I was smoking. The attraction for cigars is not that big when the point about smoking is the nicotine. I was smoking cigarellos occationally and exclusivly in periods, preferably the La Paz Wild Brazil Cigarros. "Wilde" referred to the feathered end, the wrapper stopped a quarter of an inch from the end. Unfortunately they are no longer available. Of cource, when somebody offered me a cigar I gratefully accepted... but the time it took to finnish those brutes. You really need time and space to enjoy a cigar, while you could smoke a cigarello in five minutes.
Once a smoker, always a smoker; I kept totally away from smoking for ten years, I had bad experience from before when I quit for a year and then thought I could control it. At this time a friend of me came back from a visit to Cuba with a box of Montecristo No.4. He offered me one and i could not resist. I really struggled with not to inhale and ended up inhaling about a third. I did not get nausious at all, it was like I was still smoking; after ten years! After seeing how much I enjoyd it, he gave me two to bring home. I smoked the last one early this summer and did better with not inhaling. From there I bought a five-pack of the same and enjoied the rest of the summer. My birthday is late summer and I got a sampler of five cuban cigars, and then i was totally sold.
Now, I have smoked a few more and bought even more, I also bought a small humidor. After a cigar (I guess I'm still inhaling some) I struggle a bit with abstinence, nicotine I guess. For that reason I try to keep a month between cigars, I really don't want to start smoking again.
Well, finally to my point: The database of cigars here is huge, I guess several thousands. If I'm lucky I might be able to smoke cigars for the next 30 years, and with 12 cigars a year that is a total of 360 cigars, only a fractions of all cigars labels and types available. Then, why would I ever want to buy the same cigar twice? I rarely buy the same red wine more than once, except for parties, why should it be different with cigars?
Being a member here I guess I was hoping to at least bypass the really bad ones, but there is no search options for ratings!? But again, taste is personal. I tried to find recomandations for affordable cigars that still tastes OK. I found Jose L. Piedra Petit Cazadores, and they are OK, but not good. I guess it is with cigars as with red wine, If you cant't taste the difference between one cigar and a more expensive one, you have found your maximum prize level
.
Well I guess that's all for now, oh by the way, I'm from Norway and here cigars are really expensive, and it's next to impossible to import your own.
Regards
