Smoker's Delight

Handmade cigars are not now, nor were they ever, rolled on the thighs of Cuban women, though generations of men have entertained that fantasy while staring through wine-heavy eyelids into the white haze from fine cigars.

Except for the sparkle of gold and silver jewelry, the women wear black: chic dresses that showcase a phalanx of slim legs. The guys are well turned-out in dark suits. It's a stylish crowd, rendered more so by that conspicuous consumable of the fin de siecle, the handmade cigar -- a product that says of its user, "I have money to burn and I know how to burn it."

To take the pulse of this pricey and hedonistic trend, I've invited eight seasoned, savory smokers to Patroon for a nutritionally incorrect dinner of meat, alcohol, and tobacco. They're all standout businesspeople who know how to work hard and play hard: the world's leading restaurant and hotel designer; two of America's most resoundingly successful restaurateurs; a go-go investment banker; the marketing genius who imprinted the Absolut silhouette on the collective subconscious; a literary agent just off the plane from a meeting with Bob Dole; a television producer specializing in comedy from Jerry Seinfeld to Milton Berle; and a beautiful, glib, Harley-riding retail-design consultant.

Our mission: to cut through the billows of hype that shroud the art of cigar-smoking, and to share our knowledge on the identification, acquisition, and consumption of the top-of-the-line, handmade cigar.

While we drink a pre-prandial scotch (Macallan's 18-year-old is the group's universal choice), proprietor Ken Aretsky calls for a round of cigars. Inasmuch as the house cigars are proffered and lit by the Keeper of the Humidor Room, Christina Lahara, most of us accept one of her Canaria D'Oros, a Dominican Rep. maduro whose dark wrapper belies a sweet and mild smoke.

"Unspeakable shit," pronounces architect/designer Adam Tihany, deftly opening our discussion of who smokes what -- and why.

Cuba, Si?

"Given the choice, would you smoke anything but a Cuban cigar?" I ask the group. A full answer to that question, it turns out, goes straight to the critical questions of taste, availability, price, and quality.

"There are very fine Dominican and Honduran cigars," says Tihany. "But if you go to the first-class lounge of American Airlines in London or Geneva, you'll see guys peeling the labels off of Havanas and stuffing them into their luggage so they can get them past U.S. customs. What better endorsement is there for Cuban cigars?"

As any serious cigar smoker will tell you, Cubans are available in the United States. You just have to know who to ask and who to trust, because you could easily wind up puffing on a counterfeit. Fake Cubans are like fake aristocrats at a rich debutante's coming out: they look good, but their stories don't check out.

Design consultant Jeanette Bronée has a trustworthy source: her Cuban-born, world-traveling husband. Like many women, Bronée started smoking during the past year, as the cigar vogue really caught on. Her decision to light up was, at first, a social one. "The guys would smoke after dinner and the women would just leave," she says. "I wanted to join in on the fun, so I asked for a cigar and I liked it. And I like the hanging out part."

To her left, restaurateur Drew Nieporent, a Friar Tuck of a man, passes around an unlit Onyx No. 852, a Dominican Rep. cigar. It stinks like a manure heap on a hot night. Once lit, however, it has a sweet and silky aroma.

"I can't tell you how many times I've been disappointed by Cuban cigars," he reflects with the ex cathedra air that seems to naturally emanate from a cigar guy caught in mid-puff. "All I care about is a well-made cigar. Nothing frustrates me more than an expensive cigar that goes out when you put it down because it's too loosely rolled. Cohibas (Castro's favorites) have the opposite problem. They're often too tight, too hard to draw: you have to suck and suck."

"Well if the brand isn't a guarantee," I interject, "then how do you know if a cigar is any good?"

"You don't, at least not definitely," Nieporent replies. "Still, you can get a feeling. You look at a cigar like you look at a loaf of fresh-baked bread. It has an edge, a patina. It looks sharp, like a good Punch or a Davidoff -- really well made cigars at their peak."

The group generally agrees that apart from innate good taste, the connoisseur of cigars learns to rely on suppliers as much as instinct. If your dealer knows your tastes, you've got a better chance of finding a high quality, well-made cigar.

Steve Crawford, a rail-thin banker with the preppie grace of the captain of the lacrosse team, characterizes the world of cigars as a marketplace: a seller's market for the name brands, leaving undervalued opportunities for the canny shopper. He too decries uneven quality, blaming it, paradoxically, on the soaring popularity of fine cigars.