When it comes to tobacco, smokers, barring the snowman and Sherlock Holmes of the world, often choose cigarettes or cigars. This results in a tobacco war between the two options: In a scene straight out of West Side Story, a group E cigarette claims that cigarettes are better and a group counteracts by declaring the superiority of cigars. Ashes fly, cigars cry on the shoulders of others, cigarettes leak, and items burn.
For the cigar lover, the items that burn are cigarettes – cigar lovers believe that their cigars are simply better. True cigar lovers often look at cigarettes with disdain. For them, a tobacco lover who smokes a cigarette is like a lover of good food eating things made in an Easy Bake Oven.
Some cigarette lovers may disagree, believing that cigarettes are the best option for smoking. But other cigarette lovers may simply be intimidated by cigars: fearful of a Henry Clay or a La Aurora, they find solace in a Benson and, of course, a Hedges.
It’s hard to blame these people. Cigars can be scary, like a tobacco bar lurking in a bedroom closet, waiting for night to fall. However, like so many other things, the fear of cigars is unjustified: people can crush cigars in an ashtray, on a sidewalk, in a garbage can. For this reason, cigars must be more afraid of people than people.
Once cigars are welcomed into the hearts of tobacco lovers, they will generally find that they are not intimidating, quite the opposite. In addition to providing luxury, cigars offer a handful of other satisfying avenues, avenues where cigarettes get lost on the way down. This is why we will now list the top five reasons why cigars are better than cigarettes. 1. Length: Yes, size does matter, at least when it comes to tobacco. But size, for the purposes of this argument, is not about the physical length of the tobacco, but how long it lasts. Cigarettes are short-lived, people usually smoke after ten to fifteen minutes. Cigars, however, last much longer. Smoking is pleasant, and that pleasure increases enormously when a cigarette is lit.
2. The sophistication: Sure, cigarettes sometimes look fancy, particularly when people smoke them with a mouthpiece like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffanys. But most of the time, cigars are much more synonymous with sophistication than cigarettes, at least in America. The simple act of smoking a cigar creates a sense of sophistication, while smoking a cigarette generally requires an accessory: a mouthpiece, a top hat or a monocle. 3. The variety: I’m sure cigarettes have some kind of variety; If they didn’t, the different brands of cigarettes out there wouldn’t make sense. But, the variety generally consists of certain cigarettes being lighter than others or some having less nicotine than the competitor brand. Cigars, on the other hand, infuse much more variety. Cigars not only look different, they smell and taste different, really different. Different brands of cigarettes also taste different, but not as different as a cigar. While cigarettes generally don’t travel the flavor road, cigars do. Different cigars offer extremely different flavors: one cigar may have notes of leather and earth, while another may taste like coffee and chocolate.
4. The bars: Ah, the cigar bar. Is there a more welcoming place for the experienced smoker? Cigar bars are a Mecca for tobacco lovers, a place they can go in search of a feeling of true luxury. Some cigar bars let cigarettes in, welcoming their cousins who have tobacco, but real cigar bars maintain No Smoking (cigarettes) signs. Cigarettes, on the other hand, don’t have cigarette bars to call their own. Well, not unless you count the bowling alleys. 5. Drinks: Many cigarette smokers like to combine a cigarette with a cup of coffee or an alcoholic beverage. But does combining a cigarette with these types of drinks really improve the experience? If the cigarette doesn’t have complementary flavors, probably not. Cigars, on the other hand, go well with drinks. With a variety of flavors, it’s easy to find a cigar that pairs well with everything from espresso to coniac, from a bottle of whiskey to a bottle of wine.