cigars heal the world's ills?

smoking ban is banned

smoke law: the new frontier in legislation?

I suppose some people would like nothing more than taking away smoking rights...

obligatory salesman

Ok, so I apologize to all readers immediately if you are grossed out by me plugging a product that my company sells. But, mostly, I want to tell all my readers of the awesomeness of Xikar's cutters and knives. At Stokes we only sell the cutters, but maybe we should get a few of their knives for sale as well. Then all the hate mail we get for selling cigars can be matched with hate mail for selling weapons. Which, by the way, cigars are not nearly as bad for you as everyone makes them out to be. Here is the true way to know how bad they are for you, call up prudential life insurance and find out the price difference for life insurance for cigar smokers and life insurance for cigarette smokers. Huge difference, and if a life insurance company doesnt seem to bothered by a couple of stogies, then maybe there is something to it. I digress... I will write more about Life Insurance and health later.

This post is supposed to be about the awesomeness of Xikar cigar cutters. I once, in my brilliance, decided to take my cutter apart. Must be the inner-engineer in me. Anyways, I got thing apart and lo-and-behold getting it back together resulted in me over-torquing the screw and thus broke my cutter. Alas, I felt like an idiot, but I thought I might try calling Xikar and seeing how much it would cost to fix. Since they have a lifetime guarantee, the cost amounted to $0.00. Well, I did have to pay postage, but otherwise totally free. So, I was totally surprised and they have earned my business personally as well as corporately. Stokes Cigar Club will only sell Xikar cutters. Because of their persuit of quality and commitment to their word is just like Stokes Cigar Club.

CAO Gold Maduro Cigar announced

C.A.O. International Inc. has created a new version of its popular C.A.O. Gold brand. The C.A.O. Gold Maduro, which goes on the market this month, combines the filler blend and binder of the C.A.O. Gold with a maduro wrapper grown in Brazil.

The Gold Maduro is a C.A.O. concept cigar, plucked from the display known as an escaparate at company headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. The escaparate is a glass-walled, humidified enclosure with 22 bins housing more than 400,000 cigars made from 11 different blends, none of them sold commercially until this release. The escaparate is one of the first things visitors encounter when entering the building, and the rich, heady aroma of tobacco hits their nose long before the cigars are seen.

“C.A.O. Gold Maduro was one of our very first concept cigars,” said C.A.O. president Tim Ozgener. “Over the past two years, we received such overwhelmingly positive feedback from guests of C.A.O. who sampled the blend that we decided to bring Gold Maduro to the marketplace.”

sourced from Cigar Insider April 10th, 2007

Exciting times for CAO lovers!

more cigar box guitars

If anyone really is interested, here is a great site to get you thinking in the right direction.

cigarboxguitars.com

If I get a high class cigar box guitar, then I will up the prize to a 6 month membership to Stokes, plus a free tee and ashtray.

music to my ears

So, there is a recent trend to see women carrying cigar box purses. In fact I have had several women ask me about getting extra cigar boxes to use as purses once they find out I am in the cigar business. But have you ever had anyone ask you for a cigar box to make a guitar? Turns out that cigars have quite a history in music.

So, I offer a prize to any Stokes reader, make a cigar box guitar that functions and send it to me, and I will send you some cigars and a Stokes tee. If anyone wants to make a really cool one that works really well, maybe we can auction it and donate the proceeds to charity.

Keep on Stoking!

cigar symphony

"But for me, none of them tops the meaty aroma of a good cigar. Light 100 of them at once, and you have a cigar symphony. That night, at the club on Cañon Drive, we were like the Vienna Philharmonic."

From LA Times Column

cigar quote of the day

Every cigar goes up in smoke.

- Brazilian Proverb

the inevitable first post

Recently my family has been going through some tough times, probably the toughest we will have to go through for a long time. And I am not going to write some trite muse about how it will all be better some day. I am also not going to pretend that running the business has been easy during this tough time. But I will say this. When you are dealing with loss and grief, there aren't many words to apply to the situation. There are a lot of tears, yes, but very little words. And the words that people do offer are often shallow or unintelligible.

Mostly, it just takes time and love. Two things the world is pretty short on if you ask me. Also, as a man, it is hard to make an impact in these two areas. One of the best ways I have been getting through this whole thing is by smoking cigars with my Dad. Having a burning cigar gives me something to exert my energy on while we mull over our loss and grief. We remember the good times and we chat about our feelings. Sometimes, we men have a problem with this, however a good cigar always helps me calm down, focus, and be still. Mostly it has been a good time to be together doing something together and being able to talk and focus.

This isnt much of a first post, and I realize that I am dealing with a lot of issues right now, but I think it is worthwhile for me to ramble on about cigars and the impact a simple cigar has had on me as I go through this valley of grief. Not to rule what God is doing in my life, however cigars have been a nice avenue for discussions as we go through this time as a family.