Posted: 04:51 PM ET, 02/25/09I am not sure what people learned yesterday in a cigar tasting of new production 8-9-8 Partagas versus 8-9-8 Partagas from 1998. The 10-year-old cigar was smoked first during the tasting in a back room of the Partagas Factory in downtown Havana, across from the capital building that is a twin to our own in Washington D. Read more
Posted: 09:36 AM ET, 02/25/09I spent last week at the South Beach Food & Wine Festival in Miami. It’s a four-day extravaganza of wine, food and, whenever possible, cigars. This year, Jorge Padrón hosted a cigar lounge following a banquet for the King of Spain, Juan Carlos I. Read more
Posted: 11:47 AM ET, 02/24/09It was sort of surreal last night sitting in the Karl Marx Theater in Havana and watching a presentation for the line extension of Montecristo –Open– during the XI Festival Habano. Images of pristine golf courses, sleek yachts and powerful motor racing machines were mixed with polo tournaments, tennis matches, international regattas, and Grand Prix races to the background music of Coldplay and a number of other popular rock bands. Read more
Posted: 04:56 PM ET, 02/23/09I just finished lunch at El Aljibe restaurant in Havana, and I noticed a table of a dozen or so dudes wearing various U.S. baseball uniforms, from the Dodgers to the White Sox. They looked like they were having a great time. They had smiles from ear to ear and a number of them were smoking cigars. Read more
Posted: 02:56 PM ET, 02/23/09The drink bone is connected to the smoke bone is a sentiment that I am fond of saying, but sadly in the age of the nanny state getting the two key skeletal elements of this adage together is becoming harder and harder. Either you find one of the few remaining bars with a license that allows smoking or you walk your drink outside while you smoke. Read more
Posted: 06:32 PM ET, 02/22/09I went over to the Nacional Hotel this morning to pick up my registration for the XI Festival del Habano. José Antonio Candida from Habanos S.A., the organizer of the event and the global distribution and marketing company for Cuban cigars, had my package in hand with a Bolivar Royal Corona in tubo. Read more
Posted: 04:12 PM ET, 02/20/09My shoes were dusted with a thin layer of reddish brown dirt. My bare arms were being baked by the tropical sun and the smell of curing tobacco was in my nostrils. I was back on a tobacco farm.
I took the long drive from Santiago out to Mao today with a group of about 30 other people here for the final day of the ProCigar Festival. Read more
Posted: 02:23 PM ET, 02/20/09A friend just about had a heart attack this morning. He had what he called a “global conference call” connected to “eight countries” for a “huge business deal,” but, unfortunately, his mobile phone from Cubacell ran out of credit halfway through the conversation. Read more
Posted: 03:34 PM ET, 02/19/09Last night was opening night in Santiago at the ProCigar Festival. I was sitting in a gorgeous setting, a table in the middle of an old estate once owned by a pal of former Dominican dictator Trujillo. Each table was resplendent with elaborate exotic plants, some as tall as a yardstick. Read more
Posted: 01:00 PM ET, 02/19/09I was in Aljibe, the famous chicken, rice and bean joint in Havana last night, and ran into a couple of Americans who were on a fact-finding mission. I am not sure what they were looking for, but it was a little of the ugly American and it wasn’t pretty. Read more
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