When Fidel Castro’s transferred power to his brother Raúl the other week, an important question ran through the collective mind of America. What was that question, you ask. Will Cuba remain a communist state after Fidel steps down? Will the United States annex Cuba and make it the 51^st state? Will we “liberate” Cuba, plunging it in to the bloody depths of sectarian violence and eventually civil war? Heck no! The question on the tip of America’s tongue is how will this affect my ability as a consumer to purchase and enjoy quality cigars?

It’s most typical in America to purchase fine domestic — “domestic” in this context is hipster slang for “non-Cuban” — cigars, and that’s well and good. Unfortunately, to get a quality domestic cigar, you usually have to part with some pretty serious coin, and there’s a lot of chaff to sort through before you get to cigars that you like. See, for example, the unfinished and destined to stay that way box of “Lone Wolf” — marketed by Chuck “Ranger” Norris — robustos taking up space in my humidor. ($1 each if anybody wants them.) Ug. Now, the true value shopper goes immediately to Cuban cigars. The price is right — Fine cigars can be had for $10-$15/ stick, whereas you can pay $20-$30 for a domestic cigar of comparable quality — and it’s hard to find a dud. They may not know how to play nice with the international community, but the Cubans make a mean cigar. It’s hard to go wrong with them, so long as you know how to get them.

As a brief aside, let me just say that as far as I know, it’s illegal or something to even think about Cuban cigars. America doesn’t like Cuba, Cuba does some bad stuff, doesn’t have oil, and it doesn’t present itself as a huge trading partner, so we don’t want anything to do with them. Plus they make boats exclusively out of inner tubes and only drive old cars, and that’s not cool. So there’s a law against importing or exporting anything to or from Cuba, and as everybody knows it’s bad to break laws. Even the silly ones. So everything I’m about to say is purely fictional speculation. If you trade with Cuba, the terrorists have already won.

Where was I? Oh, yeah: how do you get Cuban cigars. There are several ways. The first and probably the easiest is to go to your local smoke shop and ask for them. The phrase that pays is “do you have anything that’s not on display?” Now, if you say this while the store is busy, they’ll probably say “no” and that’ll be the end of that. Same goes if they just don’t like the look of you. Or, you know, if they actually don’t have any Cuban cigars. On the other hand, I have it on good authority that if you’re hot and female you can walk in to a shop, ask for a Cuban cigar by name in a crowded room and get it. This has never worked for me.

Once you get to the “not on display” part, there’s one more important hurdle: try to know what you’re looking for. It’s simply bad form to respond to “what exactly would you like, sir?” with “<sfx: crickets>.” Any competent smoke shop clerk could guide you to something good, but if they’ve brought out the Habanos for you, they’re doing you a favor. Try not to waste their time.

Now, that all sounds pretty easy. Unfortunately, there’s a down side: price. In my (admittedly limited, and of course purely fictional) experience, brick and mortar cigar shops charge way too much for Cuban cigars. I’ve seen markups as much as 300%. To be fair, the shops are committing any number of crimes on your behalf, but 3X really is highway robbery. There ought to be a law against that.

The way around this horrendous problem is tried and true and has been used by the informed shopper for thousands and thousands of days: The Magic Internet Machine. Through the wonders of science or whatever it is that makes the damn thing go, you can fire up a web browser, whip out a credit card and have an aged box of Habanos in your hot little hands in a mere matter of days. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no better way to purchase quality cigars for a reasonable price.

There are many, many outfits that will sell you Cubans. Most are in Europe. Some are Mediterranean states. They’re all over, really. They work just like any other on-line store. Sort of.

A personal favorite — in theory, of course — is TopCubans.com. They’re based in Geneva, Switzerland, and their service is outstanding. When they deliver the cigars, they arrive in a box labeled “Authentic Honduran Cigars, aged in Switzerland.” I really wish they would put “Honduran” in quotes on the label. That would be priceless. A nice touch that TopCubans adds on is that they take the bands off the cigars before they ship them such that if the package is* seized by customs, there’s no real way for them to tell what it is you’re getting. The bands arrive in a separate package a few days later. Their prices are a *little on the high side for Internet merchants, but they’re still well within the realm of reasonable.

CigarExport.com, which also goes by “Puroexpress,” is another fine retailer. Located in Spain, they’re supposedly the people to order from when time is a factor. They’re a bit more cavalier about shipping than TopCubans — their cigars arrive with a great big “Habanos” lable on the box — but they guarantee shipping and will re-ship at no extra charge if your order is confiscated. Of note is that their shipping charges are included in the price of the cigars. This can be substantial.

If you do end up ordering from one of these outfits, do try to receive the package in person. This isn’t a security concern, but one of entertainment. All of the delivery services know what’s up with domestic cigars shipped in from Europe. “Enjoy your Honduran cigars,” they’ll say with a considerable sneer. Have them delivered to your place of employment for extra hilarity.

I hope this brief and entirely fictional guide was at least enjoyable if not informative. Maybe one day Cuba and the United States will learn to play nice together and top-notch Habanos will be available at every corner store. Until then, Viva La Internet.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 11th, 2006 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Howto, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.