How Do Tobacco Farmers Live

If you love cigars--if you're a true cigar aficionado--you probably deal with the Vacation Conundrum at about this time every year.

What's the vacation conundrum? It's the issue of which cigars to bring on your vacation.

After all, you don't want to bring anything that could get crushed. (Long, thin cigars are just about ruled out by this principle.) Sure, most hardcore cigar aficionados have their own travel cigar humidors, which reduces the pressure to bring cigars that will go well in a suitcase; but you'll want to keep a few out of the cigar humidor, in your carry-on or next-to-you-in-the-car baggage, in case an opportunity presents itself to take a quick smoke. (Who knows--you might fly through one of the handful of United States airports, most small-to-medium-sized and located in the South or Southwest, that still allow smoking in certain locations.) And those loose cigars that don't go in the travel humidor? You don't want anything that would be too easily destroyed.

And, of course, what if your in-transit smoke break is fleeting--as are most things in travel? For example, what if you fly through a smoke-tolerant airport with its own small lounge near the tarmac, but you only have twenty minutes before you have to catch your connecting flight?

And, even assuming that you've got a travel humidor to bring along--being the cigar aficionado you are--still, isn't travelling itself fairly hectic?
Won't you want a cigar that's perfect for those little interstices in the day: the fifteen minutes between getting back from lunch and leaving for the museum; the mini-siesta between the end of the day and the lingering dinner at a fine restaurant; the fifteen-minute walk to your next bus stop? When you're travelling, is it really time to break out the fat Churchills? A premium cigar sampler full of the fattest cigars possible is really not what you want in your cigar humidor at this point.

All these reasons seem to conspire together to suggest the following temporary change to your normal smoking routine, whatever it is: when on vacation, smoke a small cigar. Cigars with a diminutive ring gauge, truncated length, and squatty, short construction make the best, most convenient companions on your travels--especially those cigars that have big taste in a short container! The problem is, your not-so-premium cigar makers have also figured out that most of us don't have a lot of time for smoking, and they've accommodated by making big tins full of things that have the look and, to the untrained observer, the mystique of cigars but don't have the construction, rich taste, or premium tobacco.

Machine-rolled small cigars are often sold in little tins to cigar smokers on the go. But premium cigar aficionados will want to know if there are any hand-rolled premium cigars that they can buy instead. And thankfully, there are!

--Coming from one of the best-regarded premium cigar companies in the world, there's the mild-tasting Macanudo Ascot.

--For an exotic taste, consider the Natural Jucy Lucy, with its Syrian and Turkish binders.

--Though it comes in a tin, like some well-known machine-made small cigars, there's nothing tinny (or machine-made) about the taste of the brilliant H. Upmann Aperitif. A bulk purchase of these fine handmade premium discount cigars might have you wondering if your tastebuds are suffering from wishful thinking. They're not.

--Acid Blondies, with their unique combination of tobaccos and their short, strong construction, make a strong possibility. (The slightly bell-shaped Acid Kong Cameroon makes another one.)

--The all-Nicaraguan CAO Criollo Pampas sells for under five dollars a stick.

--The pointy Don Tomas Cameroon Perfecto combines Mexican, Dominican and Brazillian tobaccos with a Cameroonian wrapper for taste perfection.
Better yet, build your own premium cigar sampler from all of these items--or still others! The kinds of travel-ready cigars you're looking for will have a ring gauge under five.