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TURN AND BURN!

Yogi Berra and lighting for an even burn

Los Angeles, September 3 – We’re sprinting to the finish of our tasting of medium-to-full and full-bodied cigars in order to present our rankings to you next week.

In trying to taste to many brands and blends, one area of concentration has been to try and light each cigar we taste correctly, to be able to enjoy everything it has to offer from the start. It’s harder than it sounds, until you appreciate the technique:

“Turn and Burn.”

It’s likely that a majority of the problems smokers encounter with cigars which do not burn evenly start with lighting. It’s essential to be sure that the entire foot of the cigar is lit before you begin puffing away.

The best technique I have seen is championed by the widely-respected cigar and pipe expert Richard Carleton Hacker, author of The Ultimate Cigar Book. He advises holding your light just below the end of the cigar, then puffing as you give the cigar a quarter turn. Eight quarter-turns later, you’ve made two rotations and having “turned and burned,” you should be fully lit.

Always check to see if your cigar is fully lit by turning the foot toward you and blowing gently on the end. You’ll see if the entire foot turns orange with fire, or if there are cold spots that still need help.

While smoking, it’s also important to turn the cigar and not simply puff away with the cigar in the same position the entire time. This will also help to maintain an even burn.

Having given this advice many times, I have also gotten many quizzical looks. It reminds me of the famous incident involving Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra of the New York Yankees. Berra was catching for the Yanks in the 1958 World Series against Milwaukee when Braves slugger Henry Aaron came to the plate. Berra noticed – and notified – Aaron that he was holding his bat with the label was facing down toward the ground, instead of the universal practice of having it face up towards the batter to prevent the bat from breaking.

Aaron smashed the next pitch into the left-field seats for a home run and after crossing the plate, told Berra, “I came up here to hit, not to read.”

Same with cigars. Don’t be hung up with keeping the front of the band on top. Rotate the cigar in your mouth and you’ll keep an even light and get the balance of flavor and spices which the blender intended.

Congress watch:
The continuing battle over H.R. 4520 and its amendments concerning the tobacco farming buy-out and possible control over tobacco products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has taken a breather with the August recess by the Congress.

However, cigar enthusiasts made their views known in thousands of e-mails to named and likely members of the House-Senate conference committee which will have to hammer out the differences between the differing versions of the bills.

In fact, the e-mail campaign was so successful that it was called off less than 100 hours after it started because the volume of messages from smokers clogged the electronic mailboxes of several irritated Congressional staffers. In the words of one executive monitoring the campaign, “the message was received.”

This fight is not over, however, and could come back when Congress reconvenes next month. The whole thing could be dead for this Congress, or they could wait until after the election to take up the issue in a “lame-duck” session or a bill could be passed and sent to President George W. Bush. The best scenario is for the House version to prevail which would provide help to tobacco farmers through the buyout, but leave the issue of FDA control for another day. Stay tuned and get those telephones and fax machines ready.

Party time:
Even short-timers at the Republican National Convention got into the cigar act at Club Macanudo. On Wednesday, Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC), now running for the U.S. Senate, visited the convention for one day of politics and fundraising and ended up with a lunch in his honor at the “Club” and later a fund-raiser at a Soho studio that designs clothes for The Limited. Not a bad way to spend the day in New York, especially since he had the unusual pleasures of leaving the city with more money than he came in with!

Hammer time:
The week’s wildest eBay auction involving cigars finished on Wednesday, with of a box of 29 Opus X Perfecxion No. 2 (6 3/8 x 52), a box of 10 Arturo Fuente Hemingway Masterpieces (9 x 52) and two boxes of Puros Indios pyramids: ten each of Piramides No. 1 (7 1/2 x 60) and Piramides No. 2 (6 1/2 x 46) going for $1,025.00. That’s an average of $17.37 per cigar, rarefied air for the Hemingways and Puros Indios, but almost reasonable for the box of Opus X. Of course, if you assume that the buyer really only wanted the Opus X sticks, the cost of each of those would be $35.34. Caramba!

Coming next week:
Our long-awaited rankings for fuller-bodied cigars, including our top pick which reset the standard for full-bodied blends upon its introduction in 2000. The full list will only be available to subscribers to our CigarWire service, so sign up now!
~ Rich Perelman

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