From: ????????????????
Subject: Cigars Ordinaire

Someone was asking about 50-cent cigars the other week.  I can't 
honestly recommend any,  but have a suggestion to repeat.

You have to remember that Partagas and Pleiades and H. Upmann and
Montecruz and the like are the creme de la creme, the vintage wines of
the puffing world. (I even saw some cigars this weekend with a Rothschild
brand.  $7.10.  Gulp.)  These are for special occasions, for me, anyway.

For a good, solid, cigar, look to all-tobacco ones from the Connecticut
Valley.  One good brand is Breva ($.80 this morning), another is Judges
Cave.  Now these are to the Partagas as jug red is to fine Burgundy,
but they're honest cigars.

The words to watch out for on cigar boxes are "Predominantly tobacco
with non-tobacco materials added."  They mean that the cigar is a brown
paper tube stuffed with chopped tobacco, perhaps wrapped with paper
made from tobacco leavings.  These cigars, my friends, are stinky fat
cigarettes.

For other less expensive smokes, try some of the European dry-cured
cigars.  They're different, but good.  Let me strain my spelling skill
and suggest Schimmelpennick.

But there's a reason those Partagas cost so much.  Sigh.

[I know, I know, I got off pipes completely.  I'm planning to be at 
SIGGRAPH in Boston at the end of the month.  I'll bring my pipes, and
maybe revisit Ehrlich's.  Will anyone else be there?]		~
								|
							phil  :^)

[ Hope some of y'all can join Phil at Siggraph; wish I could! -S. ]


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