Those are Montecristo cigars. When I began seriously getting into cigars, 50 years ago, Montecristo was considered by many aficionados to be the best cigar in the world. A friend and I drove up into Canada in 1975, and I bought a box which I brought back into the states. It was touch and go, there, for a while; we got selected by the border guards to pull into their garage at the crossing, and they commenced a search. The cigars were in the trunk, not very well-hidden beneath the spare tire. Fortunately, the border guards didn't want to mess with the luggage rack on the trunk, which would have had to have been unbuckled and untied for the trunk to be opened, so we escaped with our loot intact. They did pop the hood, however, and look under the lid of the air filter for some reason, where they discovered...a carburetor.
They're mediocre anymore, Cohibas from Cuba are good now. I buy them when I travel.
ReplyDeleteI had a border guard check once, luckily I had only Macanudo that time.
I never buy Cubans in America, they're either dried out to crap or not Cuban with the ring changed.
This trip was back in the mid-70s, and Cuban cigars were still pretty good. However, communism eventually ruins everything, and the government, due to its chronic need for foreign currency, and a serious tobacco plant fungus epidemic, began selling inferior stuff. Davidoff's of Switzerland even stopped selling Cuban cigars under its own name. I've had some that I bought in Mexico around 1999, and they were disappointing.
Deleteluggage rack on the trunk! sounds like a small ferin car not a big American Charger that's famed is song and story.
ReplyDeleteThe car, in fact, was a 1971 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.
DeleteNow that's a purty car.
Deletethat is a purty car, but I still can't abide a luggage rack on the trunk.
DeleteWhen I was stationed in Kuwait, some of the officers would buy Cuban cigars in Kuwait City. They clearly enjoyed them, but a smoker I've never been.
ReplyDelete"It's a pity to waste a whole Montecristo."
ReplyDelete-- Sidney Mussburger (Paul Newman), The Hudsucker Proxy