Cigars, Cigar Information and where to find Premium Cigars, Discounted Cigars and even Cheap Cigars - EUROPE: ARE SMOKING BANS ACTUALLY WORKING?

EUROPE: ARE SMOKING BANS ACTUALLY WORKING?

EUROPE: ARE SMOKING BANS ACTUALLY WORKING?

Highlights of the summer issue of the European Cigar-Cult Journal

Los Angeles, August 13 – As smoking bans slide across Europe, so does the same kind of spin so often seen in the U.S. In the newest edition – Summer 2007 – of the European Cigar-Cult Journal, editors-in-chief Dr. Helmut Rome and Reinhold Widmayer note a few facts which clash with the “reality” painted by the anti-smoking crowd:

• “The sale of cigarettes has not fallen since the ban on smoking was introduced in 2004, and instead has continued to rise, by 5 percent in the first quarter of 2007 alone (Scottish Licensed Trade Association).”

• According to the latest figures from Companies Houses, a total of 192 Scottish businesses from all sectors (pubs, restaurants, hotels) hit difficulties in the first quarter of 2007, an increase of 14 percent over the previous year. This includes 166 liquidations, up 25.7% over the previous year and 29.7% over the 1st quarter of the previous year. The business consultant Johnston Carmichael was quite clear: ‘This mostly affects the smaller bars with fixed tenancies. The absence of the smoking clientele is leading to falling income.’”

As it becomes harder and harder in Europe to find places to enjoy a cigar, the ECCJ continues to fight the good fight and to keep its reader entertained at the same time. Highlights of an interesting summer issue:

• A profile of the popular German television actress Andrea L’Arronge included her view on tobacco, despite the anti-smoking pressures: “I am gladly smoking and with pleasure. For me, tobacco and wine are cultural assets which must be preserved.”

• Think it can’t get worse, short of Prohibition? A profile of smoking in Singapore notes that all promotion of tobacco is prohibited and the laws are quite extreme. According to Wishnu Bintang, the regional manager for the importers of Havana cigars to the country, Pacific Cigar Company, “Customers must make the first approach regarding cigars and only then staff may respond.” Lest someone think this is a joke, government officials regularly pose as customers to test the staff, even of dedicated tobacco shops.

• The situation is different in Dublin, where the Irish smoking ban imposed in 2004 has been an impact on cigars, but perhaps not what was expected.

“The premium end of the cigar business has actually gone up, especially Havanas,” said David McGrane, managing director of the J.J. Fox shop in Dublin. “The sales of premium cigars in Ireland haven’t been affected as greatly as the more mundane machine-made cheroots and mini-cigars. They were the kind of cheap cigars that would have been smoked in the pub.”

The manager of Peterson of Dublin, John Dromgoole, told correspondent James Leavey, “Premium cigar sales dipped slightly in Ireland for about a year after the smoking ban and then it just picked up again. It’s much better now than before the ban. I would say we’re up 20 per cent on last year and there was an increase last year of 10 percent on 2004.”

And Guy Hancock of Decent Cigar said, “this is a message for my friends who run the specialist tobacco shops in England: the first impact of the smoking ban will be a huge surge of Christmas sales of humidors. The days when the wife used to tell her husband to clear off down to the pub to smoke on a Sunday will be over, and she’ll have to let him have a room at home to smoke.” • The focus of the tasting in this issue was cigars made with tobaccos grown only in the country of manufacture, known as “puros.” A total of 28 cigars were tasted from 10 different countries: Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and the Canary Islands of Spain.

No cigar received a perfect score of five stars. The top scorer was the Fuente Fuente Opus X Fuente Fuente, which scored 4 1/2 stars. Ten cigars received four stars, including the Cuban H. Upmann Magnum 46, the Dominican-made La Aurora Cien Anos Robusto, the Honduran-made Flor de Copan Linea Puros Robusto and La Libertad Lonsdale, the Balboa Torpedo 2001 from Panama, and five cigars from Nicaragua: Dannemann Artist Line HBPR Toro, Joya de Nicaragua Antano 1970 Robusto Grande, Joya de Nicaragua Celebracion Toro, Oliva Serie O Toro and the Padron 1964 Anniversary Series Exclusivo.

Other tastings in the issue included the Davidoff Millennium Blend Short Robusto (five stars out of five) and the tiny Primeros (4 1/2 stars), the Avo Limited Edition 2007 (four stars) and the Cohiba Maduro series from Cuba: Secretos (4 1/8 inches by 40 ring, 2 1/2 stars), Magicos (4 1/2 x 52, three stars) and Genios (5 1/2 x 52, four stars).

A special price/value tasting was held with the Casa Torano and Belmore Colorado Selection bands with high scores going to the Casa Torano Churchill (7 x 48; 4 1/2 stars) and Toro (6 1/4 x 50; four stars) and the Belmore No. 1 (6 1/2 x 38; 4 1/2 stars) and No. 4 (5 3/8 x 40; four stars).

And some travel tips:

• For those planning to visit Berlin, the enormous KaDeWe (for Kaufhaus des Westens) department store – now celebrating its 100th anniversary – has always been a must-see destination. A new benefit for smokers is the renovation of the Davidoff store within KaDeWe, a 1,450 sq. ft. homage to the cigar including a 215 sq. ft. walk-in humidor that holds about 10,000 cigars!

• In Zurich, the newest smoking lounge is the “MS Davidoff,” a floating cigar lounge which offers a “Smoke on the Water” event the first Thursday of each month for 20 Swiss francs. It raises anchor at 8 p.m. for a one-hour cruise, then settles in by 9 p.m. for another three hours of smoking until midnight. It has a capacity of around 70 and, of course, serves the full line-up of Davidoff lines: Avo, Davidoff, The Griffin’s and Zino.

And there was much more: plenty of pipe news, pairings of cigars and grappa, a history of the Martini and even a salute to Chicago’s Iwan Ries & Co., a haven for cigar smokers and pipe lovers alike. For the European perspective, the Journal is the touchstone.
~ Rich Perelman

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