I first started cigars in my second year of college. I smoked clove cigarettes and had to quit them because they gave me acne, and I'm not prone to acne, so that couldn't be good. So, while in the CVS drugstore, I saw Prince Albert Cherry Vanilla Pipe Tobacco tiparillos, picked those up and really liked them. Smoked them until my senior year in college when I was given a little Cuban Montecristo by a girl (friend) of mine. Her family was, shall we say, una famiglia la cosa nostra, so they had easy access to all things illegal. I cut the little stick, lit it, and puffed away (I learned the ritual from a CigAf daily calendar I picked up). I was knocked on my ass, this cigar floored me, I loved it! I had to have more. From then on, I decided that I needed to smoke real cigars. I returned to my tobacconist (a.k.a. CVS) and looked through their selection of cigars. I was impressed by the packaging and look of the Garcia y Vega Crystals, but instead, I picked up a bundle of maduro lonsdales (horrible, disgusting turds!) and hated them. Not discouraged, I kept the little dog-rockets in a makeshift humidor (a.k.a. empty plastic Twizzler jar)and donated them to any buddies that wanted to use the wrappers for 'non-tobacco' purposes. Things were at a stand-still for about 2 months until my older sister acquired 2 Cuban Cohiba Esplendidos from her boss for me so I smoked one on graduation day from Fordham, and the other at my graduation party a few days later. Following that, I found out my friend's family owned a cigar shop in the next town and I bought most of my sticks from there, smoking suggestions from her mom in the shop. And that's how it was. In my place, my fiance smokes as well (occasionally). No problems with smoking cigars here, we're actually gonna get married and celebrate our wedding with a box of ISOMs, I'm not sure which, but I'm thinking maybe Monte 2's.