Cigar smokers, to me at least, seem so rare. It's great that I could find an online community of people who share my passion, so here's a question for everyone. How did you get turned on to hand-rolled cigars?

As for me, I had just quit smoking cigarettes. Whenever I really wanted a smoke really bad, I would just have a cigar, and I managed to keep them occassional and not smoke them constantly. At first, I just had cheap ones, like Black & Mild and Hav-A-Tampa Jewels. Then, one day, I decided I would try a good one.

I shelled out about $18 for a Red Dot Cohiba from the smoke shop that had opened down the street from me, went to the park with my friend Chris (godfather), who had a Romeo y Julieta, and I enjoyed my first hand-rolled cigar.

Chris then bought the "Complete Idiot's Guide to Cigars," we both read it cover to cover, discovered a smoke shop in our area where the owner actually knew something about cigars, and the rest is history.

I started smoking machine made cigars, I would go to the drug store and pick up some Nicaraguan cigars on the weekend and play dominoes and poker with friends.
Like everything I do, I began to test the waters, beyond security. An uncle of mine smokes cigars daily and he gifted me a few hand rolled cigars, I liked them (Arturo Fuente) and began to research more about them. Two moths later I had bought a humidor and filled it to capacity..........


The rest is history................

Well, I had a spoon and a belt, my friend had the syringe, lighter and the goods, and from there I was an addict.....oh wait, this thread was about cigars...ummm, just don't pay attention to what I said earlier.

Actually, I bought a box of 5 Vegas just for the hell of it, and got hooked to cigars.

choner

Started smoking my dad's Roi Tans up in my tree house when I was 12. The rest is history.

Like too many of us here, I started on Swisher Sweets when I was far too young to be smoking. But that doesn't really count.

My real smoking began as a New Year's tradition and partially - I don't care what anyone says - because you look cool when you are smoking a cigar. New Year's evolved into the more frequent Friday Night BBQ with my buddies. We picked them up at the gas station on the way over. Eventually, one of us found a smoke shop and the rest is history 🙂

Smoked high-grade pipes for over thirty years, with an occasional cigar. Then teeth/gums got so bad could no longer hold pipe in my teeth. Never could get the hang of holding pipe in hand and smoking it. Started to smoke cigars (which I COULD hold between my teeth)more frequently and gradually switched over.

Started with Swisher Sweets on the golf course. Then a friend of mine bought a humidor and some other cigars and I tried those. Then another friend of mine at work turned me on to CBID. That's when everything got out of hand. The rest is history.

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quit cigarettes, and an occasional swisher sweet or jewel was satisfying - a friend mocked my cheap cigars until one day a got a mac hyde park at the liquor store. i loved it and became a regular mac smoker, unwilling to try anything else. obviously i eventually snapped out of that close-minded approach and began trying other things, finally discovering the wide variety of what was available, and also discovering that macanudo was not (shock) my favorite after all. i still enjoy a mac from time to time, usually on a sunday afternoon with a beer, when i know i have something with more kick lined up for later.

wow what a digression - i got started on real cigars as a result of peer pressure! 🙂

Well I was walking down the streets of Tampa one day when a scantly clad woman from the alley way says "Psst come here little boy"

Are we talking about cigars here?

I have always been a nicotine junkie started chewing when I was 10 (just what happens in the neck of the woods where I grew up) started sneaking the folks cigs and before you knew it I was smoking a pack a day. Then kids came along and the wife (a nonsmoker) started asking the good question of what kind of example was I setting for the kids (NEVER smoked in the house) Off and on I had smoked a swisher and maybe a Mac (the little ones in a tin) when I decided to stop the cigs all together. That lasted about 3 years. Then a co-worker who is from Cuba says that hey he can get me some good cigars (not cubans) for $35.

I took the offer and got them cigars, most of them were unbanded churchills probley some bundle stuff. It didn't matter, I smoked one, then two and before I knew it the whole box was gone. Well I tried another swisher after that and about puked. That is when I went in search of what a real cigar was and now here I am a two a day hand rolled cigar junkie and my wife hates it.

Remington

(You gotta watch out for those friends from work.)

A friend from work passed out "It's a boy!" cigars, and I took mine home and did the whole thing with the glass of brandy out back, etc. and liked it. Won $3000 in Vegas a few weeks later, treated myself to a couple of sticks from the casino store that night, and like it even more. Went in with said friend on another deal (didn't like it), then alt.smokers.cigars led me to Cbid, and the rest, as they sometimes say . . .

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About five years ago, I went on my first flyfishing trip with my wife's uncle in Idaho. On the way to the first location, he lit up a cigar and as we drove down the road in his old Dodge, the smell of that primo tobacoo filled the cab. Up until that point, I've not smoked a cigar since high school when we all lit up Swisher sweets after the football game and drank ourselves silly.

I asked if he had any more of what he was smoking and being a true BOTL he offered. Showed me how to clip it, toast it and set it ablaze. Upon putting the torch to it, I made the biggest mistake an ex-cigarette smoker could make...yes, I inhaled deeply...after picking my guts off the floorboard I calmly placed the just barely lit cigar in the ash tray and drank what was left of my Dr. Pepper trying not to cough too much. My lungs felt on fire and as if an elephant was standing on my chest. Later that evening while sitting around the campfire at our first location (Peekaboo Idaho..spelling..), I retrieved the cigar from the ashtray and lit it again; this time being more careful not to inhale. It was a most tasty treat I'll never forget. I believe it was a Hemingway Classic, nicely aged as he likes to get some really good box age on his smokes.

That's it; I've been hooked ever since and the two of us have been responsible (thank you very much) for bringing my three brothers into the BOTL along with his brother and subsequent fishing trips!

Senior year of high school going to parties, another guy & myself usually got suckered into being the driver's for the evening (not that anyone one of us or our friends would ever consider drinking alcohol underage). One night we stopped for gas & decided to buy a pack of cheap cigars. It gave us something to do on the night's we had to drive. Eventually talking to another friend's dad one day he told us where a decent cigar shop was, so we slowly moved into better cigars. Then freshman year of college (Fall 2000), I found C-Bid while bored one day roaming the internet. Got a small humidor and started keeping some cigars handy at all times.

A friend of mine and I found ourselves in Victoria Canada one spring weekend on a band trip on our Juinor year of highschool. Niether of us had smoked anything in our lifes. Wondering around on our dinner break we found a cigar store and left with 1 "cuban" cigar each - really, the tube that the cigar came in had "cuban" printed in big block lettering. That was it.

We've been smoking cigars ever since.

Nic Templeton
Seattle - WA

I love these stories. Smoked cigarettes for too many years. Quit for the last two years. One night this past summer the neighbors and I went to a large, annual all-night flea market in a Chicago suburb (Dupage County Fairgrounds for those from the area). I walked past a booth selling who-knows-what, but each time I passed by I noticed a sign that said "Cuban hand rolled cigars $4, or three for $10". It was late, the crowd was thinning, and I assumed they were marked down for quick sale. I was fairly certain they weren't "Cuban", but probably rolled by a Cuban descendent in Miami so they could tout "Cuban" without telling a bold faced lie. My next-door neighbor is a cigar smoker who also always has good beer and good wine around (God bless him!). I couldn't resist on the way out of the flea market and bought three, "sight unseen", with my neighbor in mind. They were Churchills, with a blue label with the word Miami somewhere on it. We smoked them the next evening on his deck, with some friends around, some good conversation, and some good wine. They may not have been Cubans, but they were awfully GOOD! From then on I just couldn't get out of my mind how much I enjoyed that cigar (without inhaling)......and now I'm on the road to ruin. LOL!

Wow what wonderful stories of endearment to the leaf... My story is simple. Guys Poker night. The guy hosting always had ISOMs FedExed to him and he passed them out. A once a week thing became 2-3 times a week and not 5-8 times a week.

Hey Nick... I'm in Kirkland.. Play Poker??

I'm on the 5 year plan, see first I quit cigarettes, then cigars, then work down to pipes, then chewing tobacco....naw...really...

My step-dad(he's my only DAD!)is from Cuba. When we used to go over to his mom and dad's there was football on the telly,dominos on the table,rum in glasses and wonderful smoke in the air.

It was just part of growing up.

Now, I'm hooked and I wouldn't want it any other way. Thanks Dad for sharing and showing me what a REAL cigar is supposed to taste like!

My father always used to have a stub clamped in his teeth. I always loved the smell of pipes and cigars. Every cartoon I doodled always had a cigar in its mouth. Through my early post highschool years, it was the occasional grocery store or expensive tobacco shop cigar chosen at random (not that I could tell the difference). When I used to go to bars I would smoke clove cigarettes. The women would just flock to you (then they would talk to me and decide to leave again 😉 ). One week, I watched my neighbors dogs while they were in Mexico. The girls father was into cigars and thought I might like this five pack of Monte #4s she brought back. Sure, why not. So with no experience and nothing in my belly but strong coffee, I proceded to huff my way to a psychedelic experience. The little things are still my favorite to this day. My newly blossoming desire nearly hit the wall when I realized how much cigars cost in Washington. Luckily I'm a research minded person, and didn't burn up too much dough on the learning curve before I discovered Cbid. With my aesthetic interests currently entrenched in the gilded age, I dream about strutting around town, wearing a derby and vest, and smoking a perfecto, dropping silver dollars for little kids.

A lot of similar stories. I read them all...now time for my 2 cents.

I always liked the smell of cigar smoke. My mom and Dad ran a catering business on the side, from an Italian restuarant in Alameda. The owner of the restuarant was a real Mafioso type. Always had a big cigar and a lot of the "boys" coming in and out with cigars. My Dad and Mom smokes cigarettes but my Dad would always have a cigar when doing business and on the golf course. Usually "el Cheapo's" but sometimes he would get a box of Cubans. Those smelled the best.

Later in life I took up smoking, as usually happensd in a smoker house. I liked my Marlboro reds...later lights. After high school I took on a job as a security guard. Lots of lonely nights in some guard shack in the middle of an industrial park. I worked occasionally at a mall with a great smoke shop.

The owner turned me on to pipes. He hand made all his burl and meerschaum (sp) pipes and hand mixed his blends. He would occasionally toss a cigar or two my way. I really liked them. I also liked the way I didn't have to mess with them like I did a pipe.

I gave up tobacco during a 10 year health kick, but occasionally chewed Skoal. About 6-7 years ago, I started gradually trying out cigars again. Started trying some Fuentes, Macanudos (my favorite for a while) and some R.J.'s. Just fishing and camping smokes. A few years ago, I started buying online...later found this place and really picked up the bug.

I still am an occasional smoker, 2-5 a week with occasional binges. No cigarettes any more. No more inhaling (much). But like all here....the enjoyment of a great cigar has me hooked.

Started picking up a cigar from the humidor at the golf club after a round to smoke on the deck at home. Then while on a trip to Charleston, SC my wife and I wandered into a cigar store because we knew it had a pretty popular lounge in the back. Picked up a Fuente (don't remember which one) and a LGC Serie R and enjoyed those in the evening on the trip.

At some point someone (can't remember now who) referred me to an online cigar retailer. Shortly thereafter I asked my wife for a small humi as a Christmas present. Done deal. A few months later I get a larger name branded humi as a package deal with the cigars (does this sound familiar to any of you yet?) That gets quickly filled. About two years into this sport I get an 82 quart cooler. About a year later I splurge and get a nice mini-cabinet humidor with glass front door. So let's see now........the original small humi is at the condo. At home I have the larger desktop, the mega coolerdor and the mini-cabinet humi. And I have to do some cleanout trades because I have no space for some things I would like to try out.

This is a slippery slope endeavor we are engaged in here. But I have enjoyed every minute and and have met and/or traded emails, BB dialogue and swapped cigars with some very interesting and nice people.