When Did You Start Smoking Cigars & How Did You Become A CC Connoisseur?

[CubanAmerican]

A different kind of topic for the water hole...

I was talking with my uncle the other day and I was reminded that he gave me my first cigar when I was 16.  I had visited his house and he had recently converted his back terrace into a little cigar haven where he could smoke cigars and watch TV. I asked him what it was like to smoke a cigar. He asked me if I'd like to try one and I immediately said yes. He have me a house blend Churchill from his humidor, poured me a beer and told me not to inhale. That set me off on a journey that would be going strong 12 years later. 

I smoked my first cuban a few years later. Being in the US, CC's are very hard to come by and being a Cuban, it was something I knew I had to get my hands on asap. It was a Hoyo Epicure No. 2 that I got from my next door neighbor of all places. I rushed over to my uncles so we could try it together. He had given me my first cigar. It was fitting that I should share this CC with him.  We lit it up and could tell the draw wasn't the best but once we used it his PerfecDraw, it took off and smoked great. It was something I'll never forget. 

So, what was your first experiences with cigars, either NC or CC?

 

 

[Markspring1978]

Ah yes...my first CC experience.

It was the spring of 2000, my wife and I took a trip to the UK, I was 22 at the time. I hadn’t really smoked cigars at that point, but I was very interested. A friend told me to “make sure to smoke a Cuban cigar in London” as the forbidden fruit was available there.

I went to Harrod’s which was next to our hotel and based on the clerk’s recommendation, bought a Monte #4. That night I lit it up and enjoyed it on the balcony of our hotel. Being 22 year-old kid from Montana in London, smoking a Cuban cigar, overlooking South Kensington, I thought I had arrived. I puffed and I puffed, inhaling every molecule of smoke deep into my lungs. About 15 minutes into the smoke the lights of London were spinning at an incredible rate and my legs felt like bricks. I extinguished the cigar and went into the bathroom where my wife was in the bathtub, she started laughing hysterically and told me to look in the mirror, I was green as a bean. 

The next day I went back to Harrod’s to buy a few more cigars for my friend back home. The clerk remembered me and asked how I liked my first CC. I shared the experience. It was a clerk at Harrod’s who set me straight, “Oh Sir! You don’t inhale a cigar!”  

[Dijit]

I remember it clear as yesterday. It was late June 1980. Cutting my neighbors grass. The only thing he had to pay me was a cigar and a cold glass of lemonade. It was an Arturo Fuente and I believe it was the 8-5-8. Made me sick as a dog. The next week he coached me on smoking cigars and it was sweet tea.
He passed away that August. When he's daughter moved in she gave me his whole collection of cigars maybe 70 or so and his humidor. That lead to my first Cuban. A less than inspiring smoke as I knew jack about storing them back then.
I was 15 that summer and I can still hear him telling me "slow down you big dummy," every time I would start to smoke it too fast.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[bsubtown]

My first cigars, I guess you can call them that, where Black and Milds.I met a few guys while I was in college at random house parties who are not students and lived slightly rougher lives than mine. However we became friends. they told me that you had to quote unquote freak the blunts before smoking. That meant roll it between your fingers so all the tobacco fell out into a dish. Then, you had to pull out a piece of paper that was inside of the cigar. That was what was known as the "cancer paper" and by removing it you are pretty much risk-free.  

 

I smoked a lot of Black and milds during college. Slowley I graduated to better cigars and really got hooked on Cubans by a friend whose wife was first-generation Cuban-American. For Christmas and other occasions he would offen receive Cuban cigars as a gift and pass a few along to me when we would smoke. These days I wonder about the legitimacy of some of the bands that were on them. I do not wonder about how enjoyable they were and those memories we made.

[dvickery]

1971 ... stolen from my dad .

still not a connaisseur ... just a smoker ?

derrek

[cigaraholic]

1970 in Vancouver....smoked 3 or 4 my first day

I’ve been trying to destroy as much of Castro’s crop as I can ever since

[KnightsAnole]

1993 on a private yacht, in Marina Hemingway, was given a RyJ Churchill from a former Redskins linebacker. 

[multi-useless]

Got into cigars 7 years ago or so, had some CC along the way but for several years there, they didn't really do much for me so.  Lifestyle change last year cut my alcohol consumption down, and I guess my palate changed because I went hard down the Habanos slope and haven't looked back

[JGD]

I was 15 on a trip with a bunch of kids from my school (similar to habitat to humanity). My friend’s dad gave me an Ashton and told me not to tell my folks. 

My first Cuban was later that summer. My family took a trip to Italy and Switzerland. While in Zermatt I snuck away from the hotel and went to a store down the street. I bought a selection of Cubans there (the only one a remember was a CoLa “it’s what Fidel smokes” the salesman told me). I then tool my small haul to the front desk of the hotel and asked them to mail the cigars to the local sand which shop where I worked after school. They arrived in horrible shape two weeks later, and I enjoyed every bit of them.

[Edward7]

Very infrequently I would have one when the opportunity arose. Don’t know which was my first but it certainly wasn’t before age 21. My first Cuban was a Siglo VI, and then I went off the deep end on my trip to Cuba in May last year. I’m pretty new to it but got caught up to speed very quickly - how can you not, with how tasty CC’s are. 

[JY0]

My first good cigar was about 15 years ago. We were around the fire pit and my friend offered me one. I was hooked and fell down the rabbit hole. I’m going to Havana in 2 weeks with that same friend. It’s his first trip. 

[peteando]

I was gifted a CoLa in 1998.  It was indescribably good.  I was immediately hooked.  Don't consider myself a connoisseur, but I knew I was really serious about it when I bought the Min Ron Nee book some years ago.

[DeskSmkr]

First cigar to the best of my memory was a machine made sugar tipped Coronaesque size from the bait shop we picked up when I was about 18 going fishing with a friend.

First Cuban was a slender Romeo y Julieta in an aluminum tube, from another friend who happened to be deployed with the armed forces at the time.  Not sure what vitola exactly, but it was sweet cream and different than what I was accustomed to, in the best possible way. It blew me away. Stark difference to the Nicaraguan and Dominican long filler I had then been enjoying occasionally. 

That one CC experience many years ago planted a seed and set the stage for a resurgence into the hobby many years later.

I will have to schedule a visit to both of these friends for a cigar soon.  Thank you

[smokum]

Early 90’s. Partagas NC only. I think they used a Cameroon wrapper that I just loved. Imported some Sig 3’s from London and loved them. When I found this place all hell broke loose. Aristocrat full etc. you know the deal. Hardly a connoisseur but Havent touched an NC since. Gotta have Cuban tabacco grown in Cuba.

[IanMcLean68]

First try at the age of 14, a cigar shared with a childhood friend that he had stolen from his father. I remember it was cuban and in a tubos, but I have no memory of exactly what it was. It seemed huge at the time! I remember trying it was a bit like my first taste of beer. Unpleasant strong flavours that were also strangely nice at the same time. I remember feeling a little sick after we finished it. On this friends recommendation, I also remember both of us chewing on grass afterwards to try and remove the strong smell from our breath so we wouldn't get in trouble.

I had tried a few after that early experience at various times, some tubos (RyJ and MC from memory) and occasionally the small Henry Wintermans Cafe Creme that come in tins, bought from tobacconists. The tubos were mostly very poor grubby examples, but I never minded the small Dutch machine rolled cigars in tins. Also a few gifted by my sister bought duty free whilst on deployment, both NC and CC. A few of those were good and started to peak my interest but it was still only ever a very occasional thing.

Around late 2004 I found a B&M in Sydney during a work lunch break, and decided I wanted to find out what all the fuss was really about. So, I purchased a sampler of 10 cigars, both NC and CC and a desktop 50 count humidor on the owners recommendations. The first cigar I tried from those samples changed everything! A glorious Partagas D4. I wouldn't call myself a connoisseur, but that cigar blew me away, and I haven't looked back. I tried lots of different cigars in those early days both NC's and CC's, but I preferred CC's from the very start. I remember going back to the same B&M less than a week later and buying enough cigars to almost fill my little desktop humidor.

Step forward to 2014 and I found FOH. As others have said, this is when "all hell broke loose". Almost needless to say, but now I have a wineador full of boxes! I only smoke CC's these days, but I am not averse to trying an NC from time to time.

[HabanosNJGuy]

Smoked my first premium cigar in 1996 after the Yankees won the World Series.  I was in a night club in Baltimore.  I smoked a lot of NC after that while still in college.  My smoking would wax and wane over the years from a few a year to many more in the summers at the beach.  Only had a few CC during that time, mostly Cohiba and Montecristo.  Most were excellent, not sure about authenticity, but they were definitely different that what I was used to.  Two years ago, I stopped in a shop while on cruise to Cozumel and got a bunch of CC singles.  Way overpriced but they were real.  I discovered RASS, Siglo III, RyJ SC, ERDM CS, Monty 3.  A new world for me.  I found the Dr. Joe Show on Youtube and I was hooked.  A few online vendors, then found my way over here.  A full cabinet, Newair and two tupperdors later and I'm still addicted to 24:24.  I consider myself a CC connoisseur in every circle, except here where I am humbly reminded on a daily basis that I have much to learn and experience in this fabulous journey.

[nKostyan]

I was invited to a corporate party in the organization mainly male team. It was a Hawaiian party, and I decided to buy a box of cigars to give treat for crew. It was NC, cheap and dry. I tried it too, and it was “just smoke” for me... But I was wondering what pleasure a cigar smoker gets from smoke. I began to read a lot of articles about cigars, mastered the technique of Smoking and bought the first humidor. I joined the CC party gradually, trying cheap cigars because I was afraid I wasn't ready to understand a serious cigar yet. I still do not consider myself an expert on cigars, absorb as a sponge any information from any source, often I have a bloody disputes at the Russian forum with aficionados on issues that I do not have a clear opinion on the principle of "the truth is born in the dispute." And I am grateful to FOH for being able to receive diverse information and opinions from different parts of the world.

 

[Wilzc]

One musty evening.

Horrible day full of meetings and discussions...

Picked up a nice RASS. Decent looking stick and all.

I only had a crummy USD5 'cohiba' cutter with me, yeah whatever.

 

So without much thought....   I cut the cap! I removed just that cap, nicely forming a very shallow bowl! with almost no loose fillers hurt from the collateral.

 

Staring at the perfectly cut cap resting in the middle of a rather large clean ashtray..   something..  called to me..   as if the universe is trying to tell me something, reaching out to me through that cut cap....

 

It was then..  I realised... I am a cuban cigar connossieur!

 

I live..  and breathe...  CC's!!

 

I even spell connossieur the habano way!!!

 

 

[koosh]

I became a connoisseur right after I smoked my first CC, the H. Upmann Connoisseur A.

[RichUK]

When I was 16/17 a friends father had a box of cigars and we used to occasionally steal one to smoke. His father cottoned on quite quickly and told us to buy our own rather than steal his.

25 years later, I'm still gojng strong.

[Fuzz]

Started in my mid teens. The only connoisseur I know is the ice cream.

[DandyJBez]

My first cigar was when I was 18 years old, and it was what was called a "don diego -prelude" that came in a little tin. It was a graduation gift that my parents got my older brother for college, that he didnt really want. A small cigar but still long filler if I recall correctly. (I think they might even be still available.. Might be worth taking a trip down memory lane) I cut the cap poorly with scissors, overheated the thing, but still enjoyed it. I got into cubans pretty soon.. I'd say 2-3 years afterwards, because I was interested in the history and I was still trying to try everything to broaden my palette. 

It was an H. Upmann magnum 46. In one of those 3 count petacas. Ordered online. And it really blew me away... Still love a good mag 46. after that I tried as many petacas as I could, and bought a pretty big sampler of singles from here for my birthday. And yeah. Thats how I got started. Now I buy by the box and enjoy aging and seeing all cuban tobacco has to offer. 

[CaptainQuintero]

  Not a connoisseur by a long shot, I just like setting fire to old leaves!

  I bought my dad a sampler pack of PC's for his 50th just over a decade ago and added an extra one for myself on a whim. A Bolivar I'm pretty sure.

  I never realised that tobacco could taste like that, my only experience before was horrible second hand cigarette smoke in pubs. It brought back childhood memories of some of the old men in the pubs smoking pipes and giving out clouds of rich fragrant smoke, something completely alien to what cigarettes pump out. 

 I ordered myself some singles soon after and began having them walking the pooch. Didn't stop!

[King of Norway]

My first experience smoking a Cuban cigar was a RyJ Churchill tubos. This was on a new years eve party aprox 20 years ago, there was a lot of alcohol involved that night, so my memory is kind of blurry, but I can remember buying it at my local tobacconist.  I have been enjoying cuban cigars ever since

[Piligrim]

always used to think first cigar I tried was H. Wintermann's machine shit in Jan of 2000. I remember when I bought it in local shop, got Cognac and started to smoke and drink at the candle light while listening Joe Cocker. that was like I imagined should do gentlman. sounds very funny now. 

years after I was told by my friend who was my mate at the University we shared some cigars in mid of 90's, but I don't remember that. I started my cigar business I 6 years ago and got much deeper into. still learning every day.