These are by far my favorite day to day smokes 2000 Maddy FTW! :-)


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My buddy used to bring cheap cigars to poker games for anyone to smoke. After he noticed I had actually smoked a whole one and seemed to enjoy it, he brought me a Padron Aniversario '64 Principe the next time. I bought a humidor the same week.
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The first NC that started my fall was an HUpmann Monarch tubo. I got a deal on an open box from my work and then the humidor a'la Strozier was born. The ***** was the '02 Monte #4 that sent me over the CC cliff. That's the one that put a hurtin' om my credit cards:-)
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About a year and a half ago my brother in law gave me a small cigarillo sized flavored cigar (a decent one, not a White Owl type) and it was OK. Then I tried a Macanudo Gold Court cigarillo. That was better. Still wasn't hooked or anything, just seemed like something interesting to do while having a beer.
Then a friend found out I had started smoking cigars. He was horrified at what I considered "a decent cigar" and gave me a La Aurora 1903 Platinum. WOW. That did it!
The first one I bought for myself was an Oliva G.
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about...well almost a month ago..it was the Garcia Y Vega Green Game (sucked) my first hand rolled cigar was a La Flor De Cano Habana..didn't taste like much..but I think I got me some leather taste.
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Started smoking Macanudo Portofinos about 7 years ago. Enjoyed one about every 3 months. 3 years ago, a Padron 2000 maduro caught my eye and I fell down the slope.
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The first handmades that really caught my attention were Macanudo Portofinos. They were easy to find and easy to carry with you. From there I went to Fuente 8-9-8's and couldn't get enough of them. I pretty much stayed with Fuente products for years since it's what my B&M carried and what CA magazine pushed.

Back in the late 90's there just wasn't a whole lot of information readily available for the average cigar guy passed your local B&M and CA Magazine.

I'm very glad things have changed! This place is a a real blessing!!!
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tried some pre cut longfiller cigars that sucked. my mom went to cuba and got me a handfull of sticks. one of them was a monte 2 that got me reallly started.
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DejaVu, Mac!:-) Except My First "Special Smoke" Was a Davidoff Special R. I Can Still Taste It In My Memories! After Don Fernando's Problems With Davidoff, Though, I'll Probably Never Smoke Another!:-) I'll Also Agree With You On The Maduro Whore Part!:-)
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Monte #4. I was given one by a friend on a couple of occasions. Then when he quit he gifted me 10-12 of the ones he had left.

Haven't had one in a while but it will always have a special place in my heart.
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I'd been near cigars off and on due to client relationships but I was slow to adopt the habit myself. When I finally started smoking a parade of CAOs, Ghurkas and other lesser smokes almost completely put me off the hobby. Then I found a Padon 1964 Imperial that taught me that cigars can be a tasty and meaningful experience. Then I had a BBF that expanded that concept 1,000,000,000 fold.
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Back in '06 I was getting married and I wanted to have some smokes for my wedding. I knew nothing about cigars so I had my dad tasked to get the cigars. He knew about JRCigars and always went there to get some pipe tobacco. Since he's retired and mobile he was also going to visit my sister, who lived in the Durham, NC area, and also pick up some other relatives flying into the states from Europe. Now mind you the wedding was in going to be in Wisconsin, where my bride to be lived. So they were all going to make a grand trek from North Carolina to Wisconsin for the wedding. No problems there, this was all planned out. The one thing that was not planned was that my sisters husband would die in a fishing accident two weeks before the wedding. I talked with my sister and she was upset and I volunteered to fly up there if she needed me to. She accepted. I flew up there and during some downtime my father and I went to the JRCigar store in Burlington, NC. I was amazed at all the different smokes available. My father picked up the wedding smokes, some JR bundles, and a I picked up a few loose sticks for myself. I had a Casa Blanca, a Punch Rothschild Maduro and an H. Upmann. The Casa Blanca was sort of nasty, the Punch was wonderful and the H. Upmann was meh. You can guess which one started it for me.
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I'm surprised we haven't heard from some of the FOGs about how they used to punch their Pleistocene maddies with the tip of a mammoth tusk to celebrate a successful hunt. :-)
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Bwhahahahahaha!!!:-):-):-)
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We are far too busy reading your reviews of Gurkhas and Perdomos, Steve. :-)
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Steve? :-)
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Mine was Padron! I refer you to my intro thread. :-)
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After I quit smoking 5 years ago, I started with some grocery store cigars that most people only buy for the wrappers...:-) I tried a few samplers from different magazines and really enjoyed a Padron 2000 maduro.

I was telling a friend about how much I liked the Padron and he told me to try a PAM...I got a 1964 Torpedo and...well it was all over from there.
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I went to a charity golf tournament and the pro
shop had RyJ 1875s and HdM Excaliburs. On a whim
I bought an Excalibur and found it very enjoyable.

I revisited a well-aged HdM Excalibur found buried in
my humi after a couple of years, just this past summer.
They are(still) an excellent smoke for the coin.

There are just so many other xlnt smokes out there,
that some very good smokes get sidelined(aged).

Chemyst :-)
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I don’t remember my first cigar; just that it was some gas station variety. I would have one on rare occasions with some friends or at a poker game. When I decided to look for something better I went to the only B&M that I knew about at the time and got a recommendation from the staff. He pointed me toward an Arturo Fuente Flora Fina 8-5-8 Sungrown. It absolutely blew me away. I kept going back to that shop picking up singles until the box was gone. At the time I thought that stick was one that would always be on the shelf, now I know better. Since his advice was spot-on with the 8-5-8, I followed his recommendations for quite a while. Although that shop is on the other side of town from where I live and is not my normal B&M, I still drop by on occasion just because of their influence on my trip to the slope.

My first box purchase was the Montecristo Serie V No. 4.

My first CC was a RyJ Cedros De Luxe No. 2.
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