Mr. Habano puts on a three-piece suit
Holding a cigar in my hands, I caress it as if it were a woman and I take my time to delicately light up a work of art: a Habano. I expect the best delights from it: an exclusive aroma, an exquisite flavor and a puff with a kick in it. I closely watch it as the flame burns on one end. I twist it with class, as if I were already relishing what's coming next.
Armed with the usual kind of tools, like a cedar stick, a blowtorch-style lighter, the cigar end cutter and my imagination, you might think that's pretty normal, but you're wrong. This is all a magic ritual that triggers the minds of those who live far from the stores that sell Cuban cigars.
The legend –yes, it's a legend- is an old one. However, we're not going to turn back time to delve into tobacco's 500-year-old history, but rather zero in on a boom that kicked off in the 1990s, driven by specialized magazines that started focusing on the business elite, gourmets, Epicureans or whatever.
Then from an assortment of brands, the Habano has held on tight to the top spot for centuries. Another ingredient in the recipe is the international Habano festivals that popped up for the first time in 1994 to humbly celebrate the 150th birthday of H. Upmann, the world-class stogie brand.
We're talking about a product that's hand-rolled and hinges on three strong factors: weather conditions, soils and producers' expertise. Nonetheless, this is a story that relates drinks, jewelry, fashion, cuisine, social functions, artistic performances, movies, and above all, pleasure.
CUSTOM-MADE SUIT Classiness, full of surprising twists and turns, forces beautiful people to take on certain habits, some elemental and some exotic. Sporting gold watches, extravagant hairdos, pricey perfumes and bold clothing are only but a few social traditions that rub elbows with the Habano boom, both for ladies and gentlemen.
You can say you actually dream of smoke rings when you manage to carry with you and puff at a Montecristo, a Romeo & Juliet, a Partagas, a Hoyo de Monterrey, a Larrañaga or the exclusive Cohiba, the brand that Cuban President Fidel Castro helped put on the map.
It's something easy to explain: the issue sways between prohibitions and price tags. On the one hand, antismoking campaigns heat up, especially in countries like the United States where, as a matter of fact, Cuban cigars are banned for political reasons and cigar aficionados are increasingly craving the good smoke.
On the other hand, one single cigar can sometimes top $50. Yet that conveys an image of well-to-do lifestyle and gives buyers a good name. And since this world of peculiarities has some peculiar details of its own, then only one name comes up to the surface: Cuba.
No wonder the Habano boom commenced on this Caribbean island, with smoky echoes blaring out from Vuelta Abajo, in the westernmost province of Pinar del Rio, and coming out of the hands of dry-behind-the-ears hand rollers who know all the ropes about their trade.
The region of Pinar del Rio produces 70 percent of Cuba's best-known tobacco, relying on countryside people who really excel in this particular job.
Fortunately, the story goes on and comes with some Hollywood celebrities in tow, diehard smokers like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Whoopie Goldberg, Joe Pantoliano, Matt Dillon, Seymour Cassell and quasi-larger-than-life Jack Nicholson, just to name but a few from a long list that also features such boldface names as former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Mexican diva Maria Felix and guerrilla leader Che Guevara, among others.
Several movie directors either use Cuban cigars in their films or put those two words in the screenplays, or try to promote Cuban music that, as a matter of fact, it's all the same. The only thing that does make a difference is the Habano and its multitude of brands and types.
But American movie stars are not the only enthusiasts. French actor Gerard Depardieu, who has visited Cuba several times, smokes cigars from this neck of the woods and has flied back home with quite a shipment of stogies.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg, as some people say. U.S. Senators yearn for a Cohiba, perhaps because they're true smokers, maybe because they simply want to show they belong to the world's most exclusive 100 Club, or just for chance to take a bite off the forbidden fruit.
Even though we must say there was once shortage of Cuban cigars in the world market due to the island nation's economic hardships we all know too well, the scarcity whetted everybody's desires and made demand shoot up. Smokers went bonkers for a Habano, mainly for such top brands as Doble Corona and Churchill, let alone Cohibas, Esplendidos and Montecristos A.
To top it all off, cravings for Cuban cigars reached top models. Back in the 1990s, runway girls were in full swing and sex symbols like Linda Evangelista, with her sometimes-devine-and-sometimes-develish face, appeared on the cover of a magazine with a stogie in her thin lips; quite a sale for any jaw-dropping reader.
And what about a picture of Demi Moore with a Habano in her hands? Yes, you read it right, the same gorgeous actress that has played a variety of characters and has been bold enough to pose naked during her pregnancy. It's all a matter of publicity and voluptuous philosophy.
These roads, as the saying goes, all lead to Rome. The nitty-gritty is in the huge ballrooms of Paris, New York, Madrid, Rome and many other big cities. And why not Havana?
THE MECCA OF THE ULTIMATE SMOKE The Cuban capital becomes the Mecca of the Ultimate Smoke when the International Habano Festival comes around every year in February, an event packed with tradeshows, symposiums, visits to tobacco plantations and cigar factories, meetings, sampling sessions and such contests as the Habano Sommelier and Whiskey Sampler that are organized in an effort to bind the spirit and cigars together.
But above all this, there's no better place to be during this weeklong celebration than the closing gala dinner and auction of top cigar brands –some of them autographed by President Fidel Castro himself- humidors, works of art and the presentation of the Habano Man of the Year in four categories, penciled in as the Oscar Awards of cigars.
And like the hottest movie stars of the moment, cigars bring on comments and off-key stories about commercial lawsuits, glamour and fakes. Do you know of any famous piece of anything that people haven't ever tried to forfeit?
The kingdom of cigars lords it in everyday life, wearing its gladdest rags as if it had a tux on, because whenever you drink a Don Peringnon, a cup of Oporto or a glass of genuine Cuban rum –it doesn't matter if you're a German, a Briton or a jaunty Caribbean resident- you feel class up in the air.
This cigar can be found in a hundred countries from the five continents, except in the U.S., and it backs itself up with a mighty and cultural franchise like the Habano House, with 95 outlets scattered around the world where cigars are sold like hotcakes and cultural values are washed down with cups of piping-hot Cuban coffee and rum on the rock.
Therefore, conversations among cigar aficionados from around the globe stretch out from the Old World all the way to Arabia, where Islam beliefs ban men from smoking and drinking. The rich and famous, the beautiful people, are supposed to light a Habano, not a second-hand stogie bought in a flea market. The glamour is in the cigar.
Some businesspeople on the verge of closing a deal, or just willing to tell the rest of the whole wide world that their businesses are working on all six, usually open up a box of expensive cigars that lies on their desks and goad their new partners to puff at one of those beauties.
Class is the name of the game everywhere you go. It's a soaring bird that flies high amid calmness or storm, and sometimes calls for a few sacrifices. Some other times it pays off, like when you perform the ritual of lighting a Habano with a cedar stick instead of an ordinary match or gas lighter. That's when you actually inhale the plant's aroma that wafts around you trapped in dreams and virtues of those who have a lot to show off about.
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