Posted: 03:21 PM ET, 05/18/07I took a long cab ride up to Washington Heights the other day with Jose Blanco of La Aurora cigars. Blanco, who directs the marketing for La Aurora, the Dominican Republic’s oldest cigar maker, always seems to know what’s going on in the American cigar market. Read more
Posted: 09:01 AM ET, 05/16/07I appreciate the intense passion or enthusiasm some people have for cigars, particularly Cuban. But I think some times it gets carried away and it leads people to say ridiculous things.
For example, I have heard people say, and have seen them write, that Cigar Aficionado rates fake cigars because the descriptors and quality criteria we use are not the same as the ones they use, or not up to their standards. Read more
Posted: 04:08 PM ET, 05/15/07My phone rang, and the voice was a familiar one. “It’s Joe Bastianich,” he said. “I’d like you to come out to my house for a party. My mom will be cooking, and so will Mario.”
Food by Lydia Bastianich, the queen of Italian dining in New York City? Food by Mario Batali, chef at my favorite restaurant, Babbo? And at the Bastianich household?
How could I say no?
Yesterday afternoon I made my way up Joe’s long driveway in Connecticut, where the party was already underway. Read more
Posted: 12:11 PM ET, 05/14/07In 1986, I was living in France, trying to earn a living as a freelance writer. Through some old contacts, I wrote a number of pieces for the New York Times Travel section. Read more
Posted: 04:32 PM ET, 05/11/07This is a response to Savona’s most recent blog:
The bigger question is where to smoke and drink.
Sure, it’s hard to find a place to smoke, but doing that in conjunction with a fine whisky or other brown water is the toughest. Read more
Posted: 11:07 PM ET, 05/08/07Yesterday I had lunch with cigarmaker Rocky Patel, Las Vegas cigar retailer Michael Frey and New York City retailer David Kitchens. We took an outdoor table at Rothmann’s Steakhouse on East 54th Street and enjoyed the picture-perfect weather and the midtown Manhattan scenery while smoking cigars. Read more
Posted: 10:17 AM ET, 05/07/07Finally, the Northeast had a golf weekend to remember, the first of 2007 (if you don’t count January 6th when it was 70 degrees). Since I started playing golf in 1995, we have never had a later start to the spring season. This weekend was warm and pleasant, although it did cool off a bit on Sunday. Read more
Posted: 11:14 AM ET, 05/06/07Yesterday was a picture-perfect Derby Day, and my wife and I attended a local party with about four dozen other couples, dressed in our derby finest. It was a top-notch affair, complete with a Dixie band playing Southern favorites, country ham on homemade biscuits and honey-dipped fried chicken, and maybe just a few too many mint juleps made with sour mash bourbon. Read more
Posted: 09:14 AM ET, 05/04/07
My mobile phone rang early the other morning in Los Angeles, which woke me from dreams of sake and Trinidad Robusto Extras the night before. It was a bit hazy, but it was a familiar voice coming out of the small speaker—Josh Meerapfel, the young tobacco entrepreneur and grower who produces the best Cameroon wrapper in the world. Read more
Posted: 10:32 AM ET, 05/03/07Due to a computer malfunction, this blog did not go live until May 3.
Live Free or Die. That’s the motto on New Hampshire’s license plates. I was there last weekend for another round of soccer in another place far from home and spent another night in another non-descript motel within spitting distance of an Interstate highway. Read more
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