Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

I'd been near cigars off and on due to client relationships but I was slow to adopt the habit myself. When I finally started smoking a parade of CAOs, Ghurkas and other lesser smokes almost completely put me off the hobby. Then I found a Padon 1964 Imperial that taught me that cigars can be a tasty and meaningful experience. Then I had a BBF that expanded that concept 1,000,000,000 fold.

Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

Back in '06 I was getting married and I wanted to have some smokes for my wedding. I knew nothing about cigars so I had my dad tasked to get the cigars. He knew about JRCigars and always went there to get some pipe tobacco. Since he's retired and mobile he was also going to visit my sister, who lived in the Durham, NC area, and also pick up some other relatives flying into the states from Europe. Now mind you the wedding was in going to be in Wisconsin, where my bride to be lived. So they were all going to make a grand trek from North Carolina to Wisconsin for the wedding. No problems there, this was all planned out. The one thing that was not planned was that my sisters husband would die in a fishing accident two weeks before the wedding. I talked with my sister and she was upset and I volunteered to fly up there if she needed me to. She accepted. I flew up there and during some downtime my father and I went to the JRCigar store in Burlington, NC. I was amazed at all the different smokes available. My father picked up the wedding smokes, some JR bundles, and a I picked up a few loose sticks for myself. I had a Casa Blanca, a Punch Rothschild Maduro and an H. Upmann. The Casa Blanca was sort of nasty, the Punch was wonderful and the H. Upmann was meh. You can guess which one started it for me.

Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

I'm surprised we haven't heard from some of the FOGs about how they used to punch their Pleistocene maddies with the tip of a mammoth tusk to celebrate a successful hunt. :r
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Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

Bwhahahahahaha!!!:r:r:banger

Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

We are far too busy reading your reviews of Gurkhas and Perdomos, Steve. ;)

Steve? :confused:
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Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

Mine was Padron! I refer you to my intro thread. :ss

Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

After I quit smoking 5 years ago, I started with some grocery store cigars that most people only buy for the wrappers...;) I tried a few samplers from different magazines and really enjoyed a Padron 2000 maduro.

I was telling a friend about how much I liked the Padron and he told me to try a PAM...I got a 1964 Torpedo and...well it was all over from there.

Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

I went to a charity golf tournament and the pro
shop had RyJ 1875s and HdM Excaliburs. On a whim
I bought an Excalibur and found it very enjoyable.

I revisited a well-aged HdM Excalibur found buried in
my humi after a couple of years, just this past summer.
They are(still) an excellent smoke for the coin.

There are just so many other xlnt smokes out there,
that some very good smokes get sidelined(aged).

Chemyst :cool2:

Re: What was the cigar that started it all for you
 

I don’t remember my first cigar; just that it was some gas station variety. I would have one on rare occasions with some friends or at a poker game. When I decided to look for something better I went to the only B&M that I knew about at the time and got a recommendation from the staff. He pointed me toward an Arturo Fuente Flora Fina 8-5-8 Sungrown. It absolutely blew me away. I kept going back to that shop picking up singles until the box was gone. At the time I thought that stick was one that would always be on the shelf, now I know better. Since his advice was spot-on with the 8-5-8, I followed his recommendations for quite a while. Although that shop is on the other side of town from where I live and is not my normal B&M, I still drop by on occasion just because of their influence on my trip to the slope.

My first box purchase was the Montecristo Serie V No. 4.

My first CC was a RyJ Cedros De Luxe No. 2.