P-r-e-t-e-n-t-i-o-u-s

P-r-e-t-e-n-t-i-o-u-s

The mellow, smooth, and savory aromas of chicory and Sumatran coffee give way to a succulent blend of licorice and nutty earth tastes that remind one of a stroll in a pristine forest.  The first 1/4 of this cigar was pleasant...good draw, even burn, voluminous amounts of smoke, subtle flavors lingering on the palate for a sufficient time after the smoke left my mouth.  The last 3/4 of this cigar, attesting to the complexity of the blending of the filler, binder, and wrapper tobaccos, changed dramatically, like the rising and falling of orchestral overtones...pleasing, and causing me to want more.

ARGHHHH!!!!

Have you EVER......EVER had to hold your breath, waiting for someone to finish a description such as that? I have.  I read a lot of cigar reviews, and very often the reviewer, (taster?  smoker?) will rattle off a string of adjectives like that, in an attempt to connect my graphic memory with his/her smoking experience. 

Have you EVER.....EVER described ANYTHING like that?  Anything, that is, short of an orgasmic experience that borders on the hallucinogenic?

Peppery, spicy, oily, earthy, nutty, leathery, fruity, musky....those are all words I often hear and read as they're used to describe a cigar smoking experience.  Used one at a time, they are adequate descriptors.  Used in a chain, they make me think, "Are you KIDDING ME?"

I'll say it again.  ARGHHHHH!!!!!

What's wrong with "mild, medium, strong, sweet, smooth, bitter, harsh?" Those are words the common cigar smoker can relate to.  And since almost any two of them, used together, are self-cancelling, they do just fine all by themselves....one at a time....to describe a cigar.

I guess cigars are like any other hobby.  Those who are "into" that particular hobby sometimes find it necessary to impress on others their astounding knowledge...whether the others wish to be impressed or not.

I once had the displeasure of listening to someone drone on about the "three match method" of lighting a cigar.  Granted, extremely expensive, high-end cigars seem to demand a wee bit more attention and appreciation, but this fellow went on, at length, about using three LONG, wooden cigar matches to heat, toast, and finally ignite your cigar.  Too much.  Even good cigars need just one thing....fire.

Let's light 'em up, get to smokin' and quit wastin' time tryin' to describe 'em.

Have You Hookah-ed?

Well, have you?  Hookah-ed, that is.  Maybe it's hookahed....or hooked.  I dunno, really, but hookah-ed is a past tense verb made out of a noun.  Can we do that?  Must be able to, because there it is....hookah-ed.  Past tense of "to hookah."

In case you've been living in McMurdo Station for the past few years, hookah is the the latest "thing."  Reportedly, (arguably), Middle Eastern in origin, a hookah is a water pipe...a glass or ceramic vessel filled with water, (or other flavorful liquids), and fitted with one or more hoses and a bowl on top, (which holds tobacco and hot coals).  When special hookah tobacco (shisha) is placed in the lower part of the bowl, and the heat of a coal is drawn over it, the ensuing smoke is filtered through the water in the vessel and delivered to the smoker as cool, flavorful, and aromatic.

More and more people are taking advantage of the hookah pipes and shisha in the store.  As word spreads, and people go beyond the old world stigma of what a hookah pipe might represent, they are enjoying a unique experience that lends itself well to relaxation and socializing.

So, if you're looking for something to do that's a bit more unusual than your usual evening entertainment, try hookah-ing.

QR Codes and PF Cigars

<--- What the heck is THAT thing?

THAT is a QR Code. (QR = Quick Response)

So, what IS a QR Code?

You've seen 'em. You might have even used 'em by now. Like a barcode, they're meant to be scanned, but not by the lasers at the supermarket checkout counter. QR codes are special marketing/advertising codes that are designed to be scanned by your smartphone. Once scanned, they will take you to a webpage or website of the company that compiled the code and provide you with information about that company: tickets, coupons, discounts, or other information specific to that company. If you don't already have it, you'll need to download the "app" that will let your smartphone scan and utilize the code.

So, go ahead, scan the code at the top of this page. It SHOULD take you to a page on PF CIGAR'S website that gives you information about our store and business. Also, look for this code on all of PFC's future advertising. We hope to use this to keep our customers better informed about cigar deals, events, specials, discounts, and general happenings in our cigar lounge.

Seasoning and Calibrating Your Humidor and Hygrometer

The first set of directions are the "ideal" way to season your humidor. Your patience level may dictate a different time frame.

SEASONING YOUR HUMIDOR

- Dampen, (not soak), a clean sponge or cloth with distilled water
- Wipe down all the wood inside the humidor
- Put the wet sponge or cloth on a piece of cellophane or plastic bag inside the humidor.
- Fill your humidification device with distilled water or humidifying solution (propylene glycol)
- If it overflows, wipe and blot off all excess water or solution
- Place the device inside the humidor
- Close the humidor for 24 hours (Don't open it!)
- The next day, repeat the process, but don't leave the sponge inside this time.
- Wait another 24 hours.
- On the second day, if your hygrometer measures between 68% and 72%, you're good to go. If it doesn't, repeat the process a third time.
- If you suspect your hygrometer is inaccurate, follow the next set of instructions:

CALIBRATING YOUR HYGROMETER

- Fill a bottle cap or small container with salt. Add a little water, but not enough to dissolve the salt.
- Seal the cap and the salt, along with your hygrometer, inside a Ziploc baggie
- After 6 hours, read your hygrometer, (still inside the sealed baggie). If your hygrometer reads 75%, it's dead-on accurate.
- If your hygrometer reads more or less than 75%, adjust it to 75% by turning the screw on the back. Do this immediately after opening the baggie, before the ambient room humidity changes the reading.
- If there is no adjustment screw on the back of your hygrometer, you'll have to do a "mental" calibration, remembering just how far off of 75% your hygrometer is. Add or subtract the difference from 75%.
- Perfect humidity for your cigars is between 68% and 72%. None of us is perfect.

Vamos a Nicaragua

Vamos a Nicaragua 15 a 19 febrero y se alojará durante tres días completos. Haremos un recorrido por una plantación de tabaco de trabajo, los graneros de secado, y la fábrica de laminación de cigarros. Si a usted le gustaría venir con nosotros, háznoslo saber y haremos todos los arreglos.

I don’t know how good my Spanish is. I may have just invited you to spend a weekend at my sister’s house, along with her two ex-husbands, four kids, six dogs, and God-knows-who-or-what-else.

Actually, the first paragraph was an announcement of our upcoming trip to Nicaragua, in February of 2012. As sponsors of this trip, Piano Fuerte Cigars will provide you with accommodations, food, drink, and tours for three full days at a working tobacco plantation and cigar factory. Talk about a different kind of vacation! If you can provide for your own airfare, everything else is covered. And, I’m fairly certain that the sponsors will be able to find a cantina or two, to help pass the time between tours.

Does anyone, besides me, remember the I Love Lucy episode where she was visiting husband Ricky’s relatives in Cuba, and she visited a cigar factory? The one where she rolled a three foot cigar? That could be you. If you come along, you’ll get a cigar rolling lesson, and you, too, could end up with a yard-long stogie.

Tell your relatives that you don’t want any gifts this holiday season, (unless it's cigars). Tell them, instead, to give you a gift certificate that can be put toward your airfare to Nicaragua.

Esperamos que usted venga.

Do You Have Any Cuban Cigars?

Do you have any Cuban cigars?

Hardly a week passes that someone doesn’t ask that question in our store. Some folks ask it, with an implied wink, hoping that they can surreptitiously purchase a stick or two of the illegal golden fleece of the U.S. cigar world. Others ask that question, completely ignorant of the embargo against Cuban imports of any kind, including stogies. All of them ask it because of the mystique surrounding Cuban cigars. Maybe Castro compounded that mystique, both by being an avid cigar smoker and by pissing off the U.S. so totally that we no longer buy anything produced in Cuba. No matter what, there is an immediate mental callisthenic that most people perform when they hear the words Cuban cigars; those words conjure up mystery, romance, smoking excellence, and dreams of an expedition into unknown worlds of pleasure. There’s just something about Cuban cigars that draws our interest, whether we’re cigar smokers or not.

Some of the other common references to Cuban cigars are:

“A friend of mine had some Cubans and he gave me one. It tasted terrible. What’s the big deal with Cubans?”

“A friend of mine had some Cubans and he gave me one. It tasted fantastic. What’s the big deal with Cubans?

“A friend of mine had some Cubans and he wouldn’t give me one. Should I un-friend him?

“I’m going on a cruise next month, and we’ll be stopping where I can buy Cuban cigars. What should I look for?

“How can I tell a counterfeit from a real Cuban cigar?”

The biggest deal is, indeed, whether or not you’re buying a counterfeit Cuban cigar when you make a purchase outside of this country. There are some obvious do’s and don’t’s about buying Cuban cigars.

Before buying…

Do: Read about cigars…all cigars. Learn about how and where cigars are produced. Learn about the countries, conditions, factories, and people that produce cigars. Become familiar with brands, shapes, sizes, blends, fillers, binders, wrappers…everything that goes into cigar production.

Learn about and ask about brands of Cuban cigars BESIDES Cohiba, Bolivar, or Montecristo. Those are the most commonly asked for and counterfeited Cuban cigars. Other brands, arguably just as good, are less likely to be counterfeited.

Smoke lots of different kinds of cigars. Learn the differences in taste, appearance, and packaging.

Ask a lot of questions. Ask cigar shop owners. Ask other cigar smokers.

Pay attention to what other people are smoking, asking, saying, and buying.

Gain confidence in your ability to know what a good cigar is…and what it is not.

Don’t: Don’t believe everything you read and hear. Cigar smokers are like any other aficionado. There is a heck of a lot of personal bias in any one person’s opinion.

Don’t keep a closed mind. Be open to all the bits of information you’re sure to collect about cigars.

Don’t let your own ignorance stop you from learning all you can. You won’t learn more if you don’t dig for information and ask questions.

When buying:

Do: Ask a lot of questions. Don’t be afraid to make the seller explain his product(s) to you. If you make a purchase, you’ll have paid for that information, so it should be as good as possible.

Examine individual cigars and boxes thoroughly. If you learned about seals, stamps, and labels, examine cigar packaging for all of those things. Make sure that all the words on the packaging and labels are spelled correctly and that the ink doesn’t smudge or run when you move your finger over it. (Sad, but true, many vacationers have returned with Cuban cigars with the words Habana or Cohiba misspelled.

Comparison-shop before you buy. Don’t be afraid to go from shop to shop, getting the best price.

Use common sense. If a deal seems too good to be true, it IS…not probably….certainly. In the world of Cuban cigars, there really is no such thing as a free lunch. The best you can hope for is a slight price savings along with a reasonable assurance that you actually got what you wanted.

Make your purchase from a retail tobacconist…someone who’s, hopefully, licensed to sell you what you’re looking for. Remember, if you’re on vacation, on a cruise, at a resort, the retailer knows that he/she is NEVER EVER EVER going to see you again. Someone who is less than ethical or honest may take advantage of that. Take out personal insurance by shopping at a place that is as reputable as possible.

Don’t: Don’t buy cigars, any cigars, from someone other than a licensed tobacconist. Cigars purchased from the trunk of a parked car have disaster written on the labels next to the brand name. Cigars purchased from street vendors of any kind are just as likely to be counterfeit as those purchased from the guy in the parked car.

Don’t buy cigars, Cuban or otherwise, if your intuition hints that something just isn’t right.

Don’t buy more Cuban cigars than you know you can legally bring back into the U.S. through Customs. It would be shame to leave your Cubans in the hands of Customs…even though we all know they would destroy them as per the law…heh heh.

Don’t buy Cuban cigars from the very first place you shop. Do some comparison shopping and get the best price. There’s a lot of competition.

Don’t try to speak a foreign language that you don’t know. You’ll only embarrass yourself, besides trying to order a box of Godzilla Corollas.

Don’t second guess yourself after you’ve bought a box of Cubans. Be satisfied that you did your homework, and enjoy those stogies.

One last do: Go to http://www.cigarnexus.com/counsel/counterfeit/ and read The Ultimate Counterfeit Cigar Primer. It’s worth the read.

Your Cigar Lighter

Got something a little nicer than a Bic? Get a gift that you don't quite know what to do with now that you own it?

Butane lighters, if you're going to use a lighter, are preferred among cigar smokers to get your stick going. Why? They provide a lot of heat that's focused and they stay lit as long as you like, so that you can light your cigar without burning your fingers, as with matches, (even stick matches). That said, you still want a butane lighter that is a "jet" type, rather than a Bic-type. Jet-type butane lighters mix air with the escaping butane to produce a small, intense blue flame not unlike the larger blue flame you might be familiar with in a propane torch. The jet-type butane lighters are preferable to a Bic-type of flame, because they are hotter and more direct. Bic type lighters have a cooler, wavering flame that is more suited to lighting cigarettes than a cigar.

Butane, jet lighters usually have one, two, or three jets that are good for lighting cigars. Any of them are suitable for lighting cigars, or in the case of the 3-jet models, for sweat soldering copper pipe in your garage. Because all of them burn evenly you can light your cigar evenly without burning partly up the side of your cigar. They're also pretty much wind-proof.

When you light a fresh stick, hold it in one hand, your butane lighter in the other, and heat just the end of your cigar, making circular motions with the flame until the entire head of the cigar is evenly heated and charred. Then, put your cigar in your mouth, and repeat the process with the flame pointed at the end of the cigar while you gently draw and fully ignite the tobacco. Be certain that your lighter's flame adjustment is set low enough so that you don't light your lips, nose, or moustache should the flame momentarily shoot past the end of the cigar. Once you're satisfied that your cigar is burning evenly, remove it from between your lips, inspect the end, and gently blow on the glowing "cherry" to make sure it's lit evenly around the end of the cigar.

Another advantage to a jet-type butane lighter is if your cigar happens to burn unevenly, (it happens), it's very easy to "even it up" with a butane lighter...much easier than with a match or a Bic-type lighter.

Filling your butane lighter: Hold the lighter upside down, and insert the nozzle of the can of butane fuel into the little bitty hole in the bottom of the lighter. Press against the spring in the fill hole of the lighter and hold for about 2-3 seconds. Make sure no gas is "hissing" out around the nozzle while you do this. Repeat this once or twice, and your lighter should be completely filled. The cold butane may prevent your lighter from igniting the first couple of times you try it once it's filled, so let your lighter rest for a few seconds, to warm up again, and it should light just fine.

Trouble shooting your lighter: If your lighter won't light, and you KNOW it's full of fuel, try the following:
- Make sure it's "sparking" when you try to light it.
- Clean the jets with an old tooth brush.
- "Bleed" the fuel that's in the lighter and refill it. Holding the lighter right-side up, press on the spring-loaded fill hole with a small tipped instrument of some kind. Keep pressing until it stops hissing at you.
- Refill your lighter with properly refined butane fuel. No, butane is not just butane. There are different grades. We've found in the shop that Xikar butane has less chance of eventually clogging the jets of your lighter.
- If your lighter still won't light, all is not lost. Depending on your lighter, it MAY have a warranty. Xikar lighters come with an unconditional warranty. Even if you didn't buy it from us, bring your Xikar lighter to us and we'll send it back to the company for you. They WILL fix or replace it.