Yesterday was a wonderful day for springtime golf in vancouver…. I went out with 3 friends who were from out of town ( Alberta….Cowboy Country) and hit the links with cigars and a couple of flasks of Lagavulin.. We didn’t have perfect weather but this is the beginning of March in the pacific northwest so being armed with light rain gear and waterproof footwear was just about right.  I’m not one to see how much exercise I can get while I’m golfing so I suggested we rent golf carts… Plus…. Its way easier to smoke cigars while riding rather than walking…

We played on a course by the Fraser River on the south side of Vancouver where the drainage is taken very seriously and ended up having a day of relatively mud free golf.  Mud is something you get used to in our city, especially in the winter, and when the rest of you are shoveling snow out of the driveway, we’re working on our short game.  Hey, thats one of the rewards we get for paying so much to live here….. Wanna have some fun?? Check out the real estate prices in Vancouver and compare it to the price of a home in Flint, Michigan….. BIG difference.

The greens were a bit slow, weather was comfortable enough and the pace on the course wasn’t too bad but one thing we kept seeing was a lot of geese on the course.  Canada geese are big and beautiful but they can make a real mess of a golf course in the winter.  The good thing is that they are usually unconcerned about golfers and at one point in yesterday’s round I wondered how Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds” would have turned out if it would have been thousands of Canada Geese attacking Tippi Hedren.  Not pretty…. Nope, not pretty at all!!!

After having a bit of a snack after the front nine we decided it was time to light up the 4 Maduro 5’s I brought along.  With just over 4 inches and a 40 ring gauge, these were a perfect cigar for golf ( I hear that said a lot though, maybe all cigars are the perfect golf cigar)….   These have a very well balanced chocolate, almost mocha flavor and were a real treat with the heavy peaty Scotch.  I was just grateful that there wasn’t any wind…… I don’t mind golfing on a cool windy day but I hate to see a good cigar go to waste in the wind…. It just doesn’t work!!!!!

The 14th hole was a beautiful par 4 dogleg left that wraps around a rather large pond, leading to a well guarded green.  The first three up all had fairly decent drives but trouble started when I stepped on to the tee box and topped my ball and watched it fly through the air at about 3 feet off the ground and into the neck of a Canada goose that was part of a small flock walking across the fairway 50 yards away.  This poor thing didn’t fare well and started beating it’s wings against the ground but couldn’t get air bound.  We didn’t think it was going to make it and so we decided to pull forward and put it out of it’s misery with a sand-wedge.  That wasn’t going to be necessary……. A bald eagle came out of nowhere and pounced down on the poor struggling goose

We have a large number of bald eagles in Vancouver all year round.  The late autumn, early winter is usually the time when you see the most because of the dying salmon that carpet the riverbanks after spawning.. A real banquet for scavengers… When I come back to this earth I want to be a bald eagle…. or….. maybe a cockroach… I’d hide behind the stove and food the size of volkswagens will come falling out of the sky.

The eagle had the goose by the neck with one of it’s talons and wasn’t making a move as I approached with my wedge ( I was voted to be the goose exterminator )…. Nice……. Bald eagles are a lot bigger and meaner looking when they’re up close than when you see them soaring overhead or perched high up in a tree… This one was giving me the ” One more step and I’ll tear out your liver” kind of look so I had to rethink my plan for a humane end to the goose’s life.. Maybe there wasn’t going to be one… This was getting to be a terrifying experience and what made matters worse was that the Albertans thought this was the funniest thing they had ever seen..  I didn’t see any of them get out of the golf carts….I didn’t think this was going to be as much of a problem as it turned out to be..  I had 3 issues to deal with..

1…… this Eagle wasn’t budging an inch as I crept closer….

2…… my cigar was going out in the golf cart…..

3…….That was a brand new Pro V 1 sitting about 4 feet away from the 2 big birds…

You can now see the predicament I was in……. The other three thought it would be best to leave the big noble black and white bird with his lunch but I wanted my new ball……… I lost the vote..We drove away…….

I was now lying 3……………………

After looking around the different reports on this year’s new releases out of Cube it occurred to me that the movement to start producing larger ring gauge cigars is becoming the norm.  We know that Cohiba is coming out with new 52, 54 and 56 ring gauge cigars but as I see their actions I’m starting to notice other brands out of Cuba do the same……

Limited editions will be released this year in many countries and I believe that there is a growing wave of cigar smokers that are showing their preference for sizes that are leading the suppliers of these amazing cigars to give the buyers what they want.  Looking at the cigar deletions Cuba has planned for 2010 pretty much convinces me that what I’m saying here is true.  Many petit coronas and panetelas are on the chopping block as far as production goes… I guess they just don’t sell as well as something in a 50 ring gauge.  If they did, we’d be seeing newer, smaller cigars being introduced.  A few are being introduced but only a few.

All you have to do is take a look at a Robusto and think about rolling one with long leaf tobacco and you’d probably be able to tell that construction problems are fewer and farther between compared to a long panetela or lancero.. The taste of a robusto is simply superior in my opinion because of more filler and a cooler burn…. Anyway, here I sit….. staring out the window…. waiting for the Behike to arrive…….

Each year at the closing of the Gala dinner at the Habanos Festival in Havana, different humidors of cigars are auctioned off to the highest bidder. This year’s Cohiba humidor was one of the most beautiful and artistic designs we’ve seen coming out of Havana resembling, what some could say, is a futuristic and curvaceous skyscraper.. The humidor tower contained 350 Cohiba cigars which included cigars from the classic line to the Siglo line, piramedes and the much anticipated Behike release.

This year enthusiastic cigar aficionados were able to sample the new line from Cohiba and all reports reveal that this will be a very full bodied cigar that is not only very smokable right now but will become prized possessions aging in many humidors around the world.

This year’s total for all auctions that night brought 805,000 Euros to Cuba’s health care system. The only question I have regarding a purchase of that size is the restrictions different countries have in bringing home that many cigars.  Canada only allows an individual to return home with 50 so there will have to be some pretty imaginative import plans the lucky winner of this year’s humidor will implement.  Whichever country the buyer lives in should ease any restrictions due to the philanthropic nature of the act.

There are a few pictures of the new Behike online and if you do some looking around you’ll see perhaps the most beautiful cigar band Cohiba has ever designed..

One hot afternoon in Havana last year my wife and I sat under an umbrella at a table in Cathedral Square and drank too much rum and beer as we ate lunch.  Havana is full of great musicians playing everywhere and that particular day we watched a latin jazz band whip up the crowd that sat around eating and drinking.  At one point during our meal a young man walked around with a tray of various cigars, I picked a perfectly rolled Cohiba Robusto and marveled at the taste as we waited for our bill.

We strolled back to our hotel and along the way, posed and took a few pics with a few colorful locals, then walked into our hotel lobby.  Our hotel usually had live entertainment in the lobby and this afternoon we listened to a trio of fine fine singers, two of which played nylon string guitars and one bongo player.  Since we had met them and spoke to them a few times in the 3 days we stayed there, they wanted to introduce us to a man in the audience who was planning on putting up some money for their next CD.. Needless to say, they were ” on ” that day….

In Cuba you’ll hear a lot of the same songs being played by street musicians but this trio played a lot of different music we hadn’t heard before, which was very refreshing.  We sat down and an ashtray was brought over to me which made me love the country even more… Wow, you can smoke cigars almost everywhere… What a civilized place, and the Robusto was taking me on a journey of fantastic flavors. At one point in the trio’s set the man with the $$$ requested a song called La Malaguena and it was met with a hush in the crowd that is usually reserved for the type of moment you run into when someone orders a type of fish at a sushi restaurant that will kill you if it isn’t prepared properly. The stage was set for something exciting, it was hot and tropical, we were a bit on the drunk side in a country where we couldn’t understand the language… Sounds kind of exotic doesn’t it..

Listen to THIS:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuT7pYKS4E4&feature=fvw

A few years back I was in Toronto and went out to dinner with a good friend who worked for a major record company.  He had a nice expense account and was able to go out at nights and dine at some of the best restaurants in town on the company card.  That night I sat with him and a few young British musicians who were in town doing a show the following day at Massey Hall.  I hadn’t seen this guy in a while and we caught up on all of the gossip about all of our friends while these young British guys complained about their filet mignons and wished that we could have gone to McDonald’s instead.  Punkers at a fine dining establishment…. Ha!!!!  I loved it…. But then again, I love sitting back and having a ring side seat to any sort of scandal that unfolds.

A few tables over I could see a table of suits finishing their dinner and ordering snifters of some sort of golden fluid while the kids at our table complained to our server about the lack of milkshakes on the menu.  I thought that since I didn’t have to see the bill, I’d also order some brandy to go with the creme brulee I’d soon be digging into.  Thats when I overheard a woman at a table next to the suits comment on how terrible the suits’ cigars smelled.  Cigars?? I turned my head quickly and saw that the suits hadn’t even lit their cigars and this woman had issues with aromas… Ha ha, this was going to be good!

This was a few years back when we could smoke in restaurants and we were in the smoking section of this private club restaurant, in fact, this was the only thing about this place that the punkers liked and they chain-smoked through our entire service.  Didn’t bother me.. So now the suits light up 2 of these cigars with that very distinct yellow and black band that we all know about and the fun began.  The woman one table over, in a very loud and annoying voice announced that she strongly suggested that the cigars be exterminated immediately.  The suits ignored her which made her repeat herself a bit louder.  The punkers started cheering up a bit. This was when I discovered I had a whole new respect for the punk movement.

One of the young musicians at our table got up, walked over to the woman and told her to shut her gob.  Gob???  I had a lot to learn.  Her husband told the young man to return to his seat and thats when the young British gentleman ( I started liking him more and more ) took his cigarette and flicked it’s ash into the woman’s hair.  Her husband quickly stood up and the young chain-smoking gentleman clad in black leather told him to sit back down or he’d give him some aggro…. Aggro?????  Is there supposed to be a “vation” attached to the end of that word????? I didn’t care, I just wanted to see what would happen next..

The second young spiky haired chain-smoking black leather clad British musician we were sitting with somehow sneaked behind the husband who was now nose to nose with the first ash flicking musician and got on all fours directly behind him.  Thats when ol’ ash flicker gave the husband a bit of a push and down he went.  My friend asked for our bill and announced to our server that we had to catch a plane.  I didn’t want to go anywhere but, oh well, what could I do??  The manager ran over to the commotion and begged everyone to quiet down and please return to your tables.  This is when I thought I could see a bit of smoke coming out of the top of the woman’s hairdo, which she obviously couldn’t feel or smell.. I remember thinking that it was the best day of my life when the husband got back up reached over and removed his wife’s hair (wig), threw it to the floor and then doused the smoldering furry mass with a glass of red wine.

The nearly bald woman screamed, got up, flew out of the dining room.  Our bill arrived.  Now the thing that I think I’ll never forget was how cool and calm the suits were as all of the drama was taking place.  These must have been very confident, successful individuals who knew how to enjoy life to its fullest without ever getting too worked up.  I asked my friend if he thought it would be OK to call our server back and buy a round for the suits on the company card.  All at our table agreed that it was the right thing to do.

I haven’t been to Toronto since that night and I’ve learned that my friend now works for an American record label in New york.  I’ll have to fly down to the Big Apple some day and find out when if and when he’ll be entertaining the next British Invasion.. I want to be there..

At the end of the 60’s, the eldest of 4 top-grade cigar rolling brothers, Avelino Lara, took over from Eduardo Rivera as the guiding hand at Cohiba.  He laid down three principles which have made Cohiba, Havana’s premier brand and what many consider, the finest cigar in the world.

The first principle, he called, was, “The selection of the selection”.. Cohiba had it’s choice of the finest tobacco leaves from the top 10 fertile valleys in the Vuelta Abajo.  Lara would then pick the five best for his wrappers, binders, secos, volados and ligeros.

The next principle would be the third fermentation, which is unique among Havana brands.  THis is applied to just 2 of the leaf types- Ligero and Seco.  Moisture is added to the leaves as they age in barrels to ferment out any trace of harshness.

The third and final principle is applied to the quality control over the rollers at the factory.  El Laguito is a difficult factory for anyone to get into without permission but word has it that all rollers today are female.