The Umnum Canonazo is a medium-bodied cigar, leathery and earthy, perfect for casual hangouts and night outs.
I smoked mine while I enjoyed a couple of glasses of Johnnie Walker Black Label with my fiancée at a place called BistroBar Live in Dbayeh. I feel you can also pair Umnum Canonazo with a simple gin cocktail like gin basil or gin tonic. But I’ll have to try that another time.
Cigars are something, aren’t they? While some find it rude or disrespectful when you light one in their presence, the cigar actually humanizes its smoker.
Fire and smoke. Thinking and thoughts.
You can gaze into the red eye, and you can read the words in the rising smoke.
“I accomplished something, and this is my reward.” “I need a break, and this is it.” “Stay away! I need time to think.” And sometimes, “Let’s converse and lick each other’s thoughts.”
A cigar every now and then will do you good. Don’t be afraid to burn your hourly rate on a night out, and, on special occasions, burn your daily wage bravely. Taste a good cigar! You deserve it.
It was a hot Wednesday night, and we were having dinner outdoors at Cinco in Broummana. In a bubble of loud and bassy music, I lit the Romeo Y Julieta Short Churchill, my first Cuban cigar ever.
After the first few puffs, I took a deep breath, and it felt like I inhaled the night. It was wonderful.
Medium flavored and perfectly balanced, I smoked this cigar until my fingers burned. I paired it with Famous Grouse Smoky Black at first, and then I switched to pilsner. Both went pretty well with it.
I inhaled the night. I inhaled the night like I used to in Hamra but this time in Broummana.
The year: 2021. The month: July. Temperature: Hot. Humidity: High.
Bars and restaurants were swarming with hungry, horny, thirsty people (hedonistic automatons) as usual as if Covid-19 was already history, as if the Lebanese pound was strong and stable, as if the Beirut port explosion never happened, blah, blah, (I’m so drunk writing this) and all the brouhaha.
Cars honked at high heels and tight dresses. The valets then took those cars and parked them in parallel universes.
I inhaled the night.
I could smell the perfumes of rivals in a love triangle. I could smell the sweat of the working-class, the hard workers. I could smell garbage and sulfur.
The ghosts of the dreams and desires of my generation filled my lungs.
I needed to burn something. I needed a smoke.
The hostess took me to the table where my friends were sitting, chit-chatting, already moving to the beat.
That night, I tasted what Lebanon could have been, and I tasted my first Cuban cigar.
“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
As the electronic beats’ vibrations massaged my glutes, I smoked, and I observed the night.
I saw Beauty in a long-term relationship with Sadness. I saw Past and Present sitting on high stools facing one another, smoking cigarettes and sharing memories. There was a third stool at their table, but it was empty.
I drank. I observed. I ordered many drinks, and I drank while I observed.
Yes, well, it seemed everyone was outdoors living in a bubble of loud and bassy music as if they weren’t suffering, or mourning, or dying.
There was life. But where the music did not reach, life did not either.
Hedonists everywhere! And I was a hedonist partying like après moi, le déluge. Every now and then, one must party like après moi, le déluge.
So, I drank until everybody was drunk.
But though we were partying like free spirits, I knew we weren’t free at all. We were, in fact, afraid of freedom. We were, in fact, only acting like we were free.
Paulo Freire said it right in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. “Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly.”
“Drink Responsibly,” the sign said. (I’m so drunk writing this.)
And “It is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained,” Hegel said in one of his books. But we are not ready to risk anything. We lost everything. We don’t have the means to risk anything.
Let me tell you, the air was so humid all foreheads shined like stars.
This isn’t the first cigar I ever had, but it’s the first cigar I really enjoyed smoking.
Accompanied by a glass of Laphroaig 10, I smoked this Quorum Classic Double Gordo while reading on the balcony of the hotel room at InterContinental Mzaar.
A cool breeze caressed me sporadically as the dusk fell slowly. As I waited for my fiancée to get dressed for her birthday party, I nursed my drink and smoked my cigar like a general who had just won a war.
The book I was reading was Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. “We covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment,” I read. And I immediately smiled. The Laphroaig was working. Though that was surely not what Rousseau meant when he was writing it, his words are especially true when it comes to single malts and cigars, I thought. We desire knowledge because we desire a more pleasurable experience. Knowledge massively enhances the taste. The more you learn about single malts and cigars, the better they taste.
Half the taste is the story, and consuming stories makes us human.
This six inch Gordo I was smoking lasted for about an hour. And when it was finally done, I enjoyed its aftertaste for a moment before washing my mouth with another dram of whisky.
If I ever become a full-time cigar aficionado, you can say that this was the turning point. My cigar journey starts here.
Quorum Classic is an affordable and tasty cigar. I have one on my desk as we speak, and I know that I’ll light it very soon.
Bored Absurdist 