Features
The Real Deal
On a dazzling Santa Ana wind-swept day at the Hotel Bel-Air, Denzel Washington riffles through the cigar box, passing over the Montecristo No. 2s and the Hoyo de Monterreys …
El Gaucho, Seattle
Walk into El Gaucho and you are transformed. The restaurant bills itself as Seattle's "premier steak house," but evokes more a feeling of elegant noir. Lighting is low in the …
Bettor's Rx
A funny thing happens to passengers on airline flights into Las Vegas. They get gripped with gambling fever. The symptoms are similar to what happens to preteen children as …
Cigar for the Course
Go to any good golf course these days and you'll find cigars are as plentiful as Great Big Berthas and wicked slices. Walk into a well-stocked pro shop and you'll see nearly as …
The Digital Detectives
It was a case tailored for New York's top private eyes; a tale of true-life crime that read like pulp fiction. The setting was Wall Street. The thief: a young man with a taste for …
Highway to Heaven: Corvettes
A snake slithers slowly across the heat-soaked asphalt--no rush, for it could be an hour before another car comes by. The thermometer on the wall of the old gas station stretches, …
Skiing from the Sky
"It's like taking the first run of the day right after a big storm. No"--he pauses, correcting himself--"it's like the first run of a truly epic day, except it's like that every …
The Nostalgia Broker
His singularly focused mind was saying "hat pin holders, hat pin holders, hat pin holders" as he made his way through the market aisles, when he noticed a booth that contained …
Vested Suits
The fashion runways are awash in fake suede pants, rhinestone tennis bracelets and polyurethane T-shirts--and that's on the male models! You might actually think that some of …
The Mettle of Iron Mike
Mike Ditka is relaxing in the second-floor cigar lounge of his restaurant, Iron Mike's Grille, which is connected to the elegant Tremont Hotel in Chicago. He's describing his …
Full Circle
George Hamilton looks, at 58, exactly the way a movie star is supposed to look: perfect. Always impeccably dressed and crisply pressed. Classically tailored with well-polished …
Recipe for Success
TV cooking shows have a term for the finished dish--be it a chocolate soufflé or rack of lamb en croute--that the chef magically pulls from the oven in reciprocal legerdemain to …
Hotel Inter-Continental Praha, Prague
In Ernst Lubitsch's classic 1939 comedy Ninotchka, three Soviet functionaries are dispatched to Paris to fetch a wayward comrade, Greta Garbo. Instead, they become enthralled by …
The Renaissance Stanford Court Hotel, San Francisco
You get a sense that nineteenth-century railroad baron Leland Stanford would have been proud of The Renaissance Stanford Court Hotel's ingenuity where cigars are concerned. The …
Making It in a Man's World
The glass doors open to admit a middle-aged man in a business suit. Setting aside a box of cigars, the tobacco store owner greets the customer effusively and asks him how the …
Cigars
C'est L'Afrique: Cameroon Wrapper Leaf
Tobacco Scion Rick Meerapfel and Associates Are Raising Quality Wrapper in central Africa
Cutting and Lighting
Last issue we inaugurated our Cigar 101 series with a rundown of the myriad shapes, shades and sizes that make up the world of cigars. The next step on the road to aficionado …
Great Moments
Law and the Cigar
An Interview with Manuel Quesada
Owner, MATASA, makers of Fonseca, Licenciados, Romeo y Julieta, Jose Benito, Cubita, Royal Dominicana, Credo and Casa Blanca cigars.
Ratings from this Issue
Up Front
Cigar Lovers Invade Vegas
The Big Smoke Las Vegas at Bally's on the Nov. 1 weekend confirmed one thing: the cigar renaissance is here to stay. More than 4,000 people attended the two nights of Big Smokes, …
Out of the Humidor
Dear Marvin, In celebration of my 50th birthday, my lovely wife, Jane, surprised me with a trip to Italy. While in Rome, on Saturday evening the night before Easter, Jane …