A cigar makes you stay put and pay attention. Sort of like navel contemplation, with ashes.
You can't smoke if you are in between here and there. You have to find a comfortable spot, better yet a confortable friend, and stay put for an hour or so.
A good cigar takes years to produce; it's very much like a great wine, though the analogy is overdone. A cigar is clearly not a food or a drink, but is on another plane altogether. Food and drink nourish both body and occasionally the soul. But a cigar enriches the spirit, while obviously doing squat for your body.
I love the ritual of getting a good burn. I love to make the smoke and watch the forms it takes as it dissipates. I love how good bourbon enhances the character of the smoke, and the smoke makes the bourbon seem lush. Watch the white ash form. Watch the smoke cloud the world around you. Smell the cigar coming together with the smoke you are making.
In Georgetown, there lives the kind of tobacconist that could be a movie set. Glass cases, persian carpets, a gruff merchant, the richest smells imaginable. The best cigars take me there.
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