Name: Don Tomas Clasico Rothschild

Country: Honduras

Shape: Parejo

Size: (4 1/2 inches x 50)

Strength: Medium

As Freud once said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

My wife had some friends over last night, and I had to sit with them. We had dinner: Armenian manti and sou boreg. I had a glass of red wine and ended up smoking the Don Tomas Clasico that’s been sitting in my humidor for ages.

I wasn’t looking for something strong or complex. It was already late, already past midnight. I wanted to smoke something easy and straightforward. And this Don Tomas Clasico hit the spot. It’s a cigar that is just a cigar, and I enjoyed smoking it.

Name: Casa Turrent 1880 Maduro

Country: Mexico

Shape: Parejo

Size: (6 1/2 inches x 54)

Strength: Full

The maduro wrapper is what grabs your attention first. You hold it in your fingers and feel it. Then you smell it. For some reason, it reminds you of cold winter nights by the fireplace. You smell it again. You know it’s going to be a fine cigar.

They pour you a glass of red wine, a full-bodied red wine that smells like memories aged in an oak barrel. You take a sip and detect a subtle taste that is not only wine. No. It’s as bitter as nostalgia and as sweet as hope. It’s something more than wine. Out of this world.

You close your eyes and breathe in the sunny day, the smell of the Beqaa Valley and the nearby winery.

Somewhere in the background your wife laughs and that makes you smile.

You can be happy. Yes. It’s possible, still possible.

You light the cigar and say to yourself, “Glad I’m here. Glad I’m alive today.”