Originally Posted by ColdCuts
I was just watching an hour-long documentary called The Havana: Cigar Of Connoisseurs (2005). It's a good documentary and it's free if you're an Amazon Prime member. In any case, on the program they interview a number of habanos dignitaries, one of which is Jose Luis Vilallonga. I had to Google him. He was a Spanish aristocrat and bit-part actor who co-starred with Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. He passed in 2007. Anyway, he had this to say about cigars...
"I smoke two cigars a day. One after lunch, and one after dinner. Sometimes when I go out at night I smoke another one. Three altogether. But, I never never smoke when I'm out on the streets. I never smoke driving a car. I smoke, like many other Spanish do, during the bullfight, which is barbaric, because you don't savor the aroma or taste the cigar." He goes on to explain that he smokes at the bullfights simply because it's tradition.
The documentary immediately cuts to a scene in Cuba of a man puffing away while driving a car. The posh sounding narrator says, "Almost everybody smokes cigars here, whatever the time, whatever the place."
Toward the end of the documentary, Vilallonga continues, "The Americans are what I call oblivious smokers. Oblivious smokers, because they smoke in the streets. They smoke when driving a car. They don't have this european sense which is more civilized, really. Smoking a cigar is like taking a break in the day. I sit here and, three-quarters of an hour, an hour, I smoke a cigar."
This got me thinking. I want to know how it is for you. For me, if I didn't smoke on the streets, it would cut my cigar smoking in half. And, as it is, it's difficult for me to make time for a cigar. I don't smoke inside my home either. Perhaps that's part of it. I guess I admire this guy. If I could sit everyday for an hour after lunch and an hour after dinner and smoke in my opulent living room, I suppose I would. So, are you guys like me, or are you guys like Jose?
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