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GOT TO HAVE CIGAR GADGETS II

look back . . . at our top ten picks for cigar gadgets you’ve got to have!

Los Angeles, June 24 – We're off again on a short trip, so we get to fulfill some requests for another look at our list of got-to-have cigar gifts and gadgets. Enjoy!

Oh, those gadgets. As noted in yesterday’s column, fabulous (and useful) gadgets for the smoker are available for just a dollar, and up to about $20 for a cigar rest, a really great travel humidifier or your own Cigar Store Indian that doesn’t weight 300 pounds and block the entrance to your kitchen!

From our top five gadgets, as listed in the CigarWire section of our site, a couple more of the highlights:

• No. 5: Perfecto XLT Cigar Case Humidor
I always take cigars on the road with me, since I never know whether I’ll even be able to get to a cigar store in the destination ahead. For years I have carried either a gorgeous D. Marshall travel humidor in burl or a leather-bound Dunhill travel humidor, with humidifiers, both in their velvet-lined sacks for protection.

But what would happen if my bag was mishandled? Or dropped? Should I take it with me at dinner and risk a scratch. Should I take it in the bag?

Enough already. It’s time for an inexpensive cigar case/humidor which you can throw in your suitcase and not worry about it already. And now it’s available for just $25, or $19.95 on sale!

It’s the Perfecto XLT Cigar Case Humidor. It’s made of two pieces of high-impact ABS plastic which fit together tightly; the top telescopes like the top of a leather cigar case. The interior of the bottom piece is divided in half and a tray of Spanish Cedar sits on each side with cutouts to hold four cigars per side or eight in all.

There is a small humidifier in the top to provide some humidification for a short trip, but the attraction is being able to pick eight cigars from my humidor, pop them in the XLT, close the lid tightly, pop it into the suitcase and stop worrying. The heavy plastic exterior and cedar interior will protect the cigars and it’s no larger than an oversized novel. And it’s $20 on sale; Famous Smoke Shop is offering them for $19.95 right now!

Now this is not a travel humidor in the Dunhill or D. Marshall tradition. It is certainly not finished and equipped like the well-known and much-respected Csonka models, which deserve not less than Honorable Mention here (but are way too good to be considered a ‘gadget’). But it’s just the thing for a short trip and at $20, how can you lose?

For longer trips? That’s a different story for another day.

• No. 1: Mollino Ashtray
We waxed eloquent about this item (pictured above), more a work of modern art than an ashtray, back in June. Rarely has such an item raised the eyebrows of cigar smokers when produced in public.

It’s offered by the OneOff cigar folks, whose owner is Italian airline magnate Andrea Molinari. He commissioned the Mollino and got an unforgettable, unique combination of simplicity and geometry.

The ashtray itself is a shining chrome tongue of steel which is removed from a sheath of perfect Italian leather, offered in your choice of cream, red and black (the red is by far the most enticing, unless you are Will Smith). The sides of the steel are then squeezed gently to form a curve and the clip is attached to notches near the top. The completed assembly then rests on grooves in the leather, ready to collect your ashes, or rest your cigar in perfect horizontal balance on the clip. When finished, empty the tray, wipe off any remaining ash with a napkin, squeeze the steel to pull off the clip and return them both to the leather sheath. The whole thing can then slide without notice into your coat pocket or bag.

The Mollino retails for $100 and it is not for the style-challenged. But it’s a gadget for sure and as such, is our no. 1 choice for an item the true cigar hound will be baying for until satisfied with one of his (or her) own.
~ Rich Perelman

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