Cigar Jack points out a Forbes article that explores how teenagers are turning to cigar smoking in record numbers, and decries the consequent health risks.

Putting aside the issue of how dangerous to your health proper cigar smoking is, since I’ve covered that recently in another article, we ought to turn to the issue of whether what today’s teens are smoking are really cigars. As Jack puts it:

“A new name needs to be thought up for those cigars canine fecal matter sticks sold at gas stations. I’ve smoked ACID and CAO Flavors and I’ve yet to come across grape flavored premium cigars. Did I just say premium flavored cigars. heh… This was another sign they were discussing that cheap gas station crap.”

You know, despite those harsh words, perhaps there is something to this flavored cigar thing that I’ve overlooked. In the interest of reaching out to a new generation of cigar aficionados, perhaps I ought to expand the review section here at Cigar Envy to include the cigars that this younger generation knows and loves. Why just focus on those crusty old standbys like Partagas, Romeo y Julieta, Punch, Davidoff, Arturo Fuente and the like? You have to move with the times, change or be left behind.

So don’t be surprised if you see a full-blown review here soon of a White Owl Wild Apple or a Philly Blunt Mango.

(…blogger…journalist…media whore…decisions, decisions.)

In the meantime, while I struggle with career issues, check out Cigar Jack’s comments.

Matt at Matt’s Cigar Journal recently published a mini-review of the Oliva Master Blend 5.0×50 that makes me want to run out and buy a box. Here’s a teaser to whet your appetite as well:

“This was a superb cigar. Full flavor and strong, this cigar gave me a pretty wicked buzz. It had a strong woody flavor and was surprisingly smooth for such a full flavored cigar. “

In no-nonsense, direct terms, Matt gives the basics of exactly what makes the Master Blend a superior smoke and why you might enjoy one. Check out the full review at Matt’s Cigar Blog, and look around a little while you’re there. He’s got some other very good reviews and articles as well.

Mike at Fumo Santo writes about a developing trend that…well…brings a song to my heart.

“…buy me some peanuts and a Montecristo white, I don’t care if I never . . . “

Okay, maybe I’d better stick to writing prose. Rhyming is for professionals.

The real news is that there are plans by Pittsburgh Pirates management to install a cigar and martini bar called the Montecristo Club at PNC Park for season ticket holders next year. As you might predict, there is the expected protest by militant non-smokers who don’t want the stadium air sullied by smoke from high-priced cigars while they watch baseball.

The protests are falling on deaf ears for a very interesting reason. Plans for the Montecristo Club cigar bar are going ahead anyway.

Why?

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Richard Hendrix at Blank Mind Blog recently reviewed the Carlos Toraño Casa Toraño Toro. Here’s an excerpt from his review:

“I had high expectations for the Carlos Torano Casa Torano Toro after looking over the construction, the wrapper was a beautiful light brown, tannish color with very few veins. A wonderful silky smooth texture and a slight cedar scent made me think this third smoke was to be a notable one.”

Unfortunately, the cigar he sampled did not live up to Richard’s expectations. This is a stick that I haven’t tried myself, but I’m usually quite fond of Toraño offerings and I was disappointed to hear of problems with one of their cigars. Check out the review for yourself at Richard’s Blank Mind Blog. Perhaps you’ll have a suggestion on what went wrong with the cigar.

From Matthew Temple, Financial Times:

A mansion on Sands Point, Long Island, is an unlikely setting for social rebellion. But while the rest of New York State was stubbed out with smoking bans, that was where interior designer Jamie Gibbs created his first smoking room.

With dark English walnut wall panels, oriental rugs and bookcases fronted with brass grilles, it was commissioned by a Wall Street cigar aficionado who wanted “an image of old fashioned machismo” and was successful enough to render the opinion of others irrelevant. “When every newspaper and every doctor is telling you not to smoke there’s a certain decadence when you not only smoke, you create a space to do it in,” Gibbs says.

After Sands Point came smoking dens in Manhattan and Montclair, New Jersey, and a few spots in between, many prompted by bans, (perhaps inspired by the smoking tent Arnold Schwarzenegger erected on the lawn of the California governor’s mansion) and all capturing a feel Gibbs calls “private speakeasy”, a mix of the forbidden and the historic.

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From Cigar Jack comes a tip about the Georgetown Cigar Party, a protest against the anti-smoking legislation recently passed in the state of Washington.

I’m in the process of getting more information from contacts in Washington which I hope to pass along later today, but the gist of the idea is to have a protest modelled after the Boston Tea Party. It will be held on Friday, December 2, 2005 from 3:00 to 6:00 pm at Rain City Cigar, 5963 Corson Ave., S., Suite 130, Seattle, Washington. Phone number for the store is (206) 767-3619 and their email address is raincitycigar@qwest.net.

Some of the tobacco industry people who will be at the Party include: Patrick Dewitt of General Cigar Co., Steve Martin of Altadis USA, and Don Hanes of Monarch Marketing. The event is being characterized in a flyer put out by Rain City Cigar as “an Act of Resistance,” where “great blue clouds of smoke” will be cast into the air before a copy of Initiative 901 will be symbolically thrown into the trash and the group will prepare for a protest march on Washington’s capital, Olympia.

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