Here’s the thing, I’ve noticed that some people are using the cigar profile as a template, but replace the tobacco with a variety of substitutes. I’ll give you some examples. There is a company called Durango Cigars (tm) and this company replaces the tripa or filler of regular cigars with pipe tobacco. I know you just read that twice, but allow me to explain. They use a premium tobacco leaf for the wrapper, but it’s filled with a variety of pipe tobacco including their collections called American Aromatics, International Blends, and Modern Virginians. Now I have mixed feelings about this because as a snobbish purist myself, I prefer to keep pipe tobacco flavored with casings separate from the premium tobacco in a normal cigar. I have to be honest though, I haven’t tried one yet but I am curious to experience one. Of course it’s not a direct comparison to my everyday cigars like an Arturo Fuente or Oliva. Durango Cigars has been online since 1997 and in 2003 opened up a B&M Store and lounge in St. Louis Missouri. There website
www.durangocigars.com has pictures and more information.
Another embellishment to our everyday smokes is the use of fermenting cigar tobacco in aged liquor barrels such as rum and whiskey. Although these cigars’ tobaccos are not infused with flavor like the Rocky Patel(tm) Java cigars, companies like Drew Estate(tm) decided that since a large portion of cigar smokers enjoy a nice glass of dark liquor to go their smokes they could use the charred barrels of our golden spirits to naturally enhance the flavor of their tobacco. So, Drew Estate (tm) decided to combine both vices together. Their website has a line of cigars with tobaccos aged in used Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrels saying, “This historic cigar features Kentucky seed, Kentucky grown tobacco that was fire cured and then barrel fermented. The blend includes a barrel fermented “tapa negra”-style wrapper over a Mexican San Andres base wrapper, as well as aged Nicaraguan filler tobaccos” . Again, these cigars are not competition with Drew Estates(tm) other premium tobacco cigars, but if you like a little bourbon flavor with your cigars, then it’s worth a try!
Last but not least, also from Drew Estate(tm) they have a line called Kentucky Fire Cured. What Jonathan Drew did is use a old tobacco curing trick called fire cured. You see, normal tobacco is hung upside down in a tobacco barn and fermented over time. Fire Cured tobacco is similar and is pretty much what it sounds like, they use small controlled flames in the tobacco barn during fermentation. What fire curing does is add a Smokey flavor, almost like smoking meat over a long period of time using hickory chips in a smoker. Some people like this profile,others don’t. It’s not really a new method of curing, but it is unique and takes a special kind of care because of the flames to not “over cook” the tobacco.
There are even some unique tobacco accessories that try to combine vices for a unique experience, like for example the Pigar(tm). The what? A Pigar is a metal smoking pipe with which you can put
your cigar in, head side down, so you can smoke your cigar all the way down. At www.pigarpipes.com you can purchase different Pigar pipes for around $100 a piece. It’s defiantly thinking outside the cigar box, but then again there is an audience for everything.