New York’s Secret Cigar Shops

When you set foot in Manhattan, you have plenty of cigar choices. Davidoff has two stores in the city – not including De La Concha, which it also owns. There are a handful of Barclay Rex stores, and downtown’s Wall Street Humidor is a must if you have jury duty (it’s closer to courts than it is to Wall Street). Limiting your cigar-smoking to these major retailers, though, is like visiting only the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and Times Square. The city has much more to offer.

Dotting Manhattan are small cigar shops that focus on their own brands, often rolled on the premises while you watch. Some carry a few major names supplement their own stock, while others stick strictly to the store brand. Dig into this side of the city’s cigar culture, and you will find some hidden gems.

Taino Cigars, on 9th Ave (between W 38th St and W 39th St), offers a wide selection of house brand cigars – from light and mild to a maduro that blends leaves from several countries and offers a fair degree of complexity. The store itself is decidedly austere. It’s easy to miss from the street, and inside, there are only a couple of chairs in which to sit. But, the cigars are incredibly inexpensive (corona-sized tend to be around $5), and the discounts for bundles of 25 cigars are generous.

Martinez Cigars is another diamond in the rough, on W. 29th St (between 6th Ave and 7th Ave, closer to the latter). Again, the small storefront is easy to pass by, so look carefully. Inside, you’ll see cigar rollers at work, and a small display counter up front offers you a decent selection consisting only of the store’s brand. If you like a fairly full-bodied cigar, go with the Martinez Pasion 750. In general, they tend to cost less than $10 a piece. Taking them for the road is your best bet (smoke them in Madison Square Park, which isn’t far away), as seating is quite limited. This is a destination strictly for cigars (like Taino). Part of the reason for the low prices is the salient lack of overhead.

The small hand-roll shops do stack up well against major middle-of-the-road brands. They are constructed well enough and do offer some interesting flavors. But, they still don’t compare to top-tier cigars like the upper-end Davidoff, Padron and Fuente cigars.

If you’re visiting New York, pick up a bundle from a small, local tobacconist. You’ll have a great conversation piece when you get home.

[Map shows Taino’s exact location]

Smoking hurts on Saudi airline

For a smoker, nothing is more miserable than staring down a long flight without being able to light up. As if air travel isn’t enough of a chore, various regulations and health nuts have taken away our preferred coping mechanism. A Sudanese man fought back … and paid dearly.

According to the Daily Mail, the passenger lit a cigarette on a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from Qurayyat to Jeddah. The cabin crew repeatedly asked that he put out the coffin nail, and he refused. So, when the plane touched down, he was arrested.

Saying sorry wasn’t enough.

Though he apologized in court and presented evidence that he was in a smoking cessation program, the perp was sentenced to 30 lashes. Hey, the judge wanted to prove a point. And, it could have been worse. Last April, another in-flight smoker was sentenced to 50.

Not only does smoking kill … it hurts like hell.

Though many human rights organizations condemn this form of punishment, it is quite common for a number of offenses, from adultery to being alone with a non-relative of the opposite sex. Some crimes can lead to thousands of lashes, but they are meted out in batches of 50 over a period of months.

What gets you 1,000 lashes? I don’t know, but I suspect a post-coital cig after joining the mile-high club would put you in the running.

[Via Daily Mail]


What strange things have been found on planes?


Reactions to World’s Biggest Smoking Ban: Londoners Fired Up

London–the alleged smoking and drinking capital of the world by sheer volume of alcohol and cigarettes consumed–put its smoking ban into effect, kicking and screaming, on July 1st. Although other cities, such as New York or Paris, have gone through similar labor pains, London’s is the biggest smoking ban yet: it affects 3.7 million businesses, including 200,000 pubs, bars and restaurants.

So far in the last two weeks, smokers have reluctantly gone outside to smoke, but the government is not stopping there. It is planning to change the law so that, among other things, employers can be fined if they fail to stop workers dropping cigarette butts on the street.

The Independent offers a glimpse into the London smokers’ sentiments by quoting a few “influential” ones:

  • ‘I am appalled at it. They are treating us like children. I’m not a schoolboy. Mr Brown thinks he’s a prefect’. David Hockney, Artist
  • ‘We’re suppressing everyone these days, not allowing adults to make their own minds up’. Antony Worrall Thompson, Chef
  • ‘The alleged danger of so-called second-hand smoke is so phoney it stinks to high heaven’. Joe Jackson, Musician
  • ‘You would have to search the world very hard to find a single government that would say it was abolitionist’. Paul Adams, British American Tobacco
  • ‘Smokers should not be discriminated against simply because they smoke’. Chris Ogden, Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association
  • ‘I’m inventing bike sheds to attach to buildings so it’s somewhere people can go to smoke’. Joanna Lumley, Actress

Hmmm, I am a semi-militant non-smoker myself but I realize that smoking bans do raise important questions about personal liberty in civilized societies. Makes you wonder, what’s next?