Different kinds of places to buy cigars

[TheRiddick]

Originally Posted by mobarbq

Don't they though? Actually, what was going through my mind when I bought them-I was thinking about some recent research I did on Mark Twain. I am working on some plans related to the stamp issue coming out next year to honor him, and I have been reading about his taste for what most of us (and his cohorts back then) would call terrible cigars. Turns out he actually liked them, something about that was the kind of cigars he started smoking when he was just a kid, and I guess he had developed a taste for them. Interesting character and cigar smoker for the ages.

I have low expectations for them, for sure.

"Terrible" to whom?

You do understand that 5 cents back then was actually good money, right? Especially for a cigar. Now read up on Oppenheimer and see how he made his zillions on "terrible cigars" (yeah, same Oppenheimer of Wall Street fame these days).

Gurkha still sells every stick made (at a premium no less), Garcia & Vega are still in business, I can go on. So, what is a "terrible cigar"?

[mobarbq]

Originally Posted by TheRiddick

"Terrible" to whom?

You do understand that 5 cents back then was actually good money, right? Especially for a cigar. Now read up on Oppenheimer and see how he made his zillions on "terrible cigars" (yeah, same Oppenheimer of Wall Street fame these days).

Gurkha still sells every stick made (at a premium no less), Garcia & Vega are still in business, I can go on. So, what is a "terrible cigar"?

In my original post I was speaking "terrible" as it was defined by Twain's acquaintances. I have no idea what their standards were, but I got the impression Twain thought they were "cigar snobs." If it wasn't expensive or fancy enough, they didn't want to smoke it. He pulled a switch on them one time, I understand. He "appropriated" some of their cigars, took the bands off and handed them out at a gathering at his house, and they all couldn't recognize their own cigars and later threw them out on the street as they left, thereby exposing their cigar hypocrisy.

As far as what constitutes a terrible cigar today, my first nomination would be a cigar that has a pronounced chemical taste, as in pesticide residues or something. Had one of those that was in a sampler recently. I would call that a terrible cigar. Otherwise, I live on a fixed income, personally, and cigars I've heard others call trash cigars were satisfactory as far as I'm concerned. I'm one inmate that's far from being a cigar snob if that was the thrust of the question!