TC the Terrible

Dry heat is still hot, or something like that.  The lack of humidity may make 118 degrees feel like something less than 100 degrees but it’s Hell on cigars.

Thanks to my Twitter buddies I’ve got a great stock of Boveda packets to keep my humidors balanced.  For the most part.  My travel case still requires me to keep water in the humidifier.  It’s a real struggle to keep that puppy at 70% or so despite the fact it is supposedly hermetically sealed.   The traditional wooden box humidor I keep in the office holds in moisture a little better but requires a charge on occasion too.  Basically the Boveda packs that should last nearly eight weeks are good for about four weeks in Iraq.

The problem with the air is how quick it dries out a cigar once I take it out of the humidor.  Even the best of my cigars fall victim to the dry air.  Normally a good cigar like a Nat Sherman, or a Nub will give me a great smooth burn.  Not here.  Even the best of cigars go out if I’m not constantly drawing on them.  They also have a very lop sided burn, often times one side will burn nearly an inch faster than the other.  The wrappers all crinkle and fall apart as I get close to the middle of my smokes.  Naturally all the puffing and re-lighting cause a burnt flavor.

There’s not a lot to do here that qualifies as relaxing or fun.  It’s a shame the lack of humidity takes away one of the few options that we have.

TC

I know that I was educated in a Bill Clinton Arkansas public school system, but this doesn’t add up even for me.

Remember how you felt when your big sister told you that Santa Claus was fake?  That all those cool presents under the tree were put there by Mom and Dad while they were yelling at you to go to bed and stay there?

Remember the tears of denial?  All those rationalizations on how your big sister was lying to you?  Then there was the day just before Christmas when the folks were out of the house having drinks with the other grown ups on the block and you got up the nerve to go look in their closet.  Viola!  There were all the gifts that you’d been asking for.

Remember that soul crushing moment?

Smoking a Cuban cigar for the first time in almost a decade isn’t that bad.  It’s in the same ball park.  Just not that ultimately bad.

Back at the turn of the century I was a very casual cigar smoker.  At most I’d light and hold two or three a year.  But I was doing business with some guys that made regular flights to the Caribbean and since they were in small planes that didn’t clear customs anyway they always brought back Cuban Cohiba cigars.   Some times, as part of doing business, they’d toss a few my way.  Some I smoked, some I traded for stuff I thought I needed and some I just flat gave away.

Here in the desert Cuban Cohiba cigars are rather easy to come by.  (If Allah is smiling on you, the ones you buy might not even be dried out.  Every humidor I’ve seen here, be it in the PX or the Haji shops, is stuck under 40% relative humidity.  But I digress.)  Easy but not cheap, and trust me Haji-man knows exactly what the going price is.  Still, it’s a Cuban right?  The Holy Grail of cigar smokers.

Not.

Maybe I’m an idiot, but I can’t honestly taste that big of a difference.  The Padron I had last week is just as good a smoke.  So was the Nat Sherman for that matter.  Granted the Cohiba was a notch above the Rocky Patel Decade Maduro, but it was a small  notch at best.

So tell me what I’m missing here.  Has the desert gone to my head and confused all my senses?  Or have Cuban cigars simply become a modern myth, like Bigfoot and strippers that are going to nursing school?  I don’t know the answer to that.  I do know that if I’m running low and Haji-man wants to get righteous on his pricing I’ll buy a few more.  But I also know that my parents were the ones shoving the presents under the tree while I  tried not to fall asleep.

SABER SQUELCH out.