Question: What do you do with a large brown
tube-like object placed between your index finger and thumb?
Answer: Don’t deny the experience ever took place – as United States President Bill Clinton did after he gave Monica Lweinsky a cigar to titillate herself with while he watched.
That’s the official line from the 70-odd aficionados who stuck to the conventional method of smoking cigars during a tasting evening held in Johannesburg this week.
“Cigar tasting is quite a serious business,” says Bobby Nel, a company director who smokes R120 Davidoff cigars after dinner with a glass of cognac at weekends.
Sales of cigars in South Africa have doubled from R17-million in 1995 to R35-million. Colin Wesley explains: “It is the most affordable luxury in the world.”
He scoffs at the notion that it is luxury reserved for the rich. “Cigars are considered elitist only because [they are a means for people to mark] a sense of achievement in life.”
Wesley, co-founder of cigar club Cigafrique, which has a membership of more than 1 500, hosts cigar tasting evenings once a month.
This month’s guests are invited to sample one of nine cigars lettered from A to I. After much sucking and blowing, they are to score the result of their samples on a report card. Marks out of 10 are awarded for flavour, aroma, aftertaste, aesthetics, and construction. The various scores are totalled for overall “delectability”.
“Mine is quite solid to touch,” coos Judith von Weidemann, whose ruby lips are planted firmly on a dark-brown cigar with a white label marked C around its lower end.
“Overall delectability? I think it’s the best cigar at the table,” she purrs confidently.
Her friend, antique dealer Joseph Blazevic, is trying not to gag on cigar E. “This cigar is good enough to give to unwanted guests,” he sputters, trying to get rid of the taste.
Von Weidemann, a marketing executive and social cigar smoker of two years, complains that she would smoke cigars more often if restaurants did not object and people accepted women smoking cigars. Von Weidemann believes that cigars enhance women’s sex appeal.
Manufactures and importers object to the 3 669% hike on excise duty on cigars announced by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel in his budget last month.
Antonio Garcia of Brasant, one of the two main importers of Cuban cigars, says it is the lower end of the cigar market – the King Edwards and Ritmeester smokers – that will be heavily affected by the increase, which Manuel says will contribute to healthy living.
But senior executives in the cigar industry are astounded by the logic of this latest policy. “A good cigar costs in the region of R100. The cost will go up by R7,33. But the mass-produced cigar that also weighs 23g will cost more than R9,” says an exasperated Garcia.
“The whole health issue surrounding cigars is misunderstood. Cigar smoking is much healthier – cigar tobacco is fermented twice reducing nicotine and tar content – than cigarette smoking because you do not inhale.”
Garcia thinks it will be three months before the impact of the increase hits the industry.
Meanwhile Pieter Dry has concerns of his own. Dry is the managing director of Serengeti, which makes handmade cigars of the same name here in South Africa. Serengeti hit the market late last year and has been well received. According to Dry, sales are about 15 000 cigars a month and, before the hike, he planned to expand his staff of 12 to 17. Dry imports nine different tobaccos from Cuba and Brazil.
Colin Wesley climbs on to the stage to announce the winner of the cigar tasting. Much to Von Weidemann’s disappointment her delectable C – a Vega Robiana – comes third from the bottom. But Nel is pleasantly surprise that his pick – Don Diego Robusto, a mild cigar – comes first.