Have a Cigar: Quorum Classic Double Gordo

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Name: Quorum Classic Double Gordo

Country: Nicaragua

Shape: Parejo

Size: Gordo (6 inches x 60)

Strength: Full

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.

“Little Lake” by Bedros Tourian

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Bedros Tourian (1851-1872) was an Armenian poet and playwright. This is my translation of “Little Lake” from Armenian to English.

Little Lake

Why are you stunned, little lake?
Your wavelets are not in motion.
Is it that a beautiful woman
Wistfully looked in your mirror?

Or is it that your wavelets
Are admiring the blue of the sky
And those shining clouds
That look like your foam?

My melancholic little lake,
Let us be friends.
Like you, I, too, love
To be alone, silent, meditative.

How many waves you have…
My forehead holds that many thoughts.
How many foam flakes you have…
My heart has that many wounds.

Even if heaven’s constellations
Fall in your lap
You, you cannot match
my soul, whose fire is infinite.

There, the stars do not die.
The flowers, there, don’t decay.
The clouds don’t form rain
When you and the air are calm.

Little lake, you are my queen!
Let the wind gust through my wrinkles.
Again, in your exciting depths,
You hold me, trembling.

Many have rejected me,
“He only has a lyre,” they said.
Someone: “He trembles; he is pale.”
Another one: “He will die.”

No one said, “This boy’s
sorrowful heart, let’s tear it
To see what is written there…”
There, there is fire, not a book.

There is ashes… a memory…
Let your wavelets move, little lake,
Because a despairing man
Stared into you.

“My Death” by Bedros Tourian

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Bedros Tourian (1851-1872) was an Armenian poet and playwright. This is my translation of “My Death” from Armenian to English.

My Death

If the grim angel of death
Descends to face me with a baseless smile,
And my pains and soul evaporate,
Know that I am still alive.

If, with my forehead shining with tears,
In a shroud, like a cold rock,
They wrap me, lay me in a black casket,
Know that I am still alive.

If, at my bedside, my exemplar,
A taper – feeble and wan –
With a cold ray shimmers,
Know that I am still alive.

If the sad bell tolls,
The wicked laughter of death vibrates,
And my coffin takes its silent step,
Know that I am still alive.

If those funeral singers
Who have dark and dismal faces
Spread incense and prayers
Know that I am still alive.

If they decorate my grave,
And with sobbing and mourning
My dear ones depart,
Know that I am still alive.

But if it remains unmarked,
The only pile of earth of mine
In the world, and your memory of me fades
Ah! This is the time when I die.