Rain City Cigar

While it certainly is important to carry quality stogies in a cigar shop, the true differentiator between a good shop and a great one is the people who staff it and by that standard, Rain City Cigar in Seattle is one of the very best. Read the rest of this entry »

El Rico Habano

Product testing at poolside in LA

I’d like to introduce Patrick DeWitt, the General Cigar rep for the Northwest. Affable, gregarious, knowledgable and fun to hang out with (all good cigar rep qualities), he’s a familiar face to my Brothers of the Leaf and me as he carries 20 lines under the General Cigar banner and so we get to see him at cigar events at our favorite cigar shop and lounge haunts (Rain City, Lit Lounge, Thunderbird, Smokey Joe’s). Read the rest of this entry »

Oliva, Cain & Nub!

A little cigar porn to brighten your day, courtesy of the Oliva website

It’s a stunning, summery Puget Sound day in May and Rain City Cigar is hosting an Oliva event, one of my top brands which also includes Nub and Cain. I look forward to getting some quality time with Russell Graham, the Oliva rep, and enjoying the top notch camaraderie one can expect at RCC. I attend these events regardless of the weather but on such a glorious day, something that has been is very short supply this Spring, it will be jacketless smoking pleasure outside — natural vitamin D and clouds of aromatic cigar smoke — sweet! Read the rest of this entry »

EP Carrillo Elencos Elite

When your favorite cigar rep puts his hand over his heart and swears this particular box of cigars is perfect for you, what can you do but thank him and whip out the plastic? I first met Terry Coleman at Rain City Cigar, my beloved neighborhood brick and mortar cigar emporium where he was peddling La Flor Dominicana sticks on an LFD event day. Read the rest of this entry »

The greatest cigar experience of my life (so far)

The following guest post is from musician, business continuity consultant, father and cigar lover, Doug Cassell:

Brothers of the Leaf,

What follows is the story of the greatest cigar experience of my life (so far). I have waited to write this up, partially so I could attempt to come up with words that can describe the experience, and partly because I wanted to type it with a real keyboard vs. my iPad, knowing it would not be a short review. First, I must set the scene: Read the rest of this entry »

Fondling Cubans In A Foreign Country

A glorious Winter day in Vancouver (taken from the Granville St. bridge as I walked to the cigar store)

Tonight I’m bundled up like an Eskimo out on the penthouse deck of a downtown Vancouver BC hotel drinking Glenlivet 12 and smoking a Cuban Cohiba Maduro 5 — very nice in spite of the 30+ degree temp due to the rare, clear Winter night sky. The locals get just as giddy from two sunny, fairly warm days in a row as we Puget Sounders do — people are out walking with big smiles on their faces, motorcycles are everywhere and the clothing is a strange mix of Winter and Summer garb; shorts with parkas, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Jaime Garcia Reserva Especial

Smoking a cigar in wintery Puget Sound with any degree of comfort and relaxation can be rather challenging. For those of you readers coping with Winter elsewhere on the planet who somehow have not heard about Seattle’s legendary rain, here’s the executive summary — drizzly rain, overcast and temps in the forties. Read the rest of this entry »

Cigar Accessories

One cannot truly enjoy a fine cigar without proper accessories. If you’ve smoked a fair number of stogies with me, you know that such utterances emerge from my mouth not as casual observances but as gospel truth, spoken with real conviction. I’ve always viewed my condition as merely being extremely opinionated and very outspoken but a highly paid consultant recently told me I speak in “declarative statements”. I suspect that’s a polite way of saying the same thing but then he asked me to try speaking to a group of people at work without using such statements which meant I could only ask questions and that’s a humorous tale for another day. Read the rest of this entry »