Ortalon was right on. I didn't know what a smoke free environment was until I went away to college in the early 1960's. My father smoked 6-8 a day. He said Cuban's were good but like Geaorge Burns preferred the cheaper US Smokes. BTW 'Clear' Havana cigars were made in Tampa with Cuban tobbacoo for many years. A visit to Ybor city will show many factory buildings still standing. Anyway, the Cigar Boom came and Cuban's became the rage and Castro hurried production and even Davidoff severed relations with the Cubans refusing to sell thier cigars. Enter Macanudo in the 1970's, made in Jamaica at that time and a great cigar. This started the swelling of very good non-Cuban cigars culminating in the best cigar in the world today, the Padron Anniversario, Millenium or 1926, bar none.
My Pendergast 3668 Humidor.
Jim finally sold his business realsing what most of us knew that the cigar boom has long been over.
Did you know that Castro tried to have the Soviet commandor on the ground launch the fully armed Nuclear missles at the US? When Kruschev got word, he recinded battlefield command. Castro tried and almost started WWIII which with Curtis LeMay's help would have the left the USSR as a vast smoking hole in the ground to this day. The 'Beard' must die before anything resembling normal relations can be established!-Dick
