Sketches from a smoker's album: Christmas annals

Half the best smoking moments come during the festive period. It was on a solitary session listening to the dulcet tones of Phil Collins and the lesser know Andrew Gold that I appreciated that some of the best moments in writing are to be had on the tod as it were! 

A flight was enjoyed this evening, starting with a very superior smoke, a No. 2 Montercristo was the first of my venture and it had a wonderful plume against a fabulous flavour paired next to (dare I say it) a brilliant gingerbread rum - a la M&S - and cola. I fell no shame in the combination despite my previous incredulity, it was a very nice combination. the drink sat well against a potent havana with quite a plume. 

Next was a lovely little cigar, a Trinidad to be exact, given  to me by a great friend who knows my preference to tobacco! I am sure that the smoking of the very item in front of our mutual relations would have caused quite a stir but I refrained on this occasion...maybe next year in SW19! It was a beautiful, light draw and a rich cadence of smoke which followed, well chosen by a fellow who has little idea of smoking (or maybe he does)!

I wish I had the foresight to choose something that was of great heritage to the last but you should always finish, after a couple of great character, with something of the mainstream like a Villiger Grosseformat coupled with a very apt band... The Doobie Brothers...I smoke as I write, a great crime! But like those cool cats of the 70s I live ‘minute by minute’ and enjoy the occasional can of lager!

Their rather catching tones made me think and reflect on another couple of moments had over this short but festive era...

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Bolivar No. 2 has haunted me this Yuletide season, we have go through family, feast, famine and fun in equal turn. Buying the two cigars, as i did at Wimbledon’s finest purveyors of  tobacco goods ‘Sutherlands’ (not finest - that is reserved, for Wimbledon Wine Cellars), I had no idea that these two little tubes of Cuba’s finest would afford me such enjoyment over the Christmas period. 

My first was had standing outside a floor to ceiling glass window, I understood that no one else wanted to share my enjoyment of the cigar and luckily I had already seen the film they were watching. Listening to some raw Rickie Lee Jones (‘Company’ if you want the song), it was a moment, the chill night against my cheek set against the rich smoke. It was a wonderful feel, reflective and indulgent, a slight guilty pleasure was discern in addition as relations cast a few disapproving glares at the, pretentious as he is, ‘catcher in the rye’

The second: sitting down with sympathetic company and enjoying a few scotches we were chopping a mountain of red cabbage and peeling potatoes, I knew this stogie well but it must  be one of the moments where this cigar both came in useful but captured my heart. I have recommended it in an earlier post but it is definitely something to have when you are up against it, as a real morale booster.