For most cigar smokers, the enjoyment is an experience.
And more often than not, the experience involves other people, inviting and relaxed atmospheres, pleasant conversations…and usually a sense of appropriate style. Sometimes the setting is the golf course, sometimes it’s a cigar lounge, the smoking patio at a restaurant, the beach, the woods… If you look at this list and think, “yep, all of the above!”, I think we might just be good friends some day.
Aside from the obvious requirements of a travel humidor — keeping your cigars safe and keeping them fresh, what else really matters? It’s almost a foregone conclusion that your cigars are hand-rolled from carefully curated, meticulously grown and masterfully blended tobaccos. The craftsmanship that goes into each and every cigar is, I dare say, second to no other consumable item in the world, especially at its price point. And as much as we appreciate all the dedication and skill that went into making the cigar, eventually we all do the same thing: we light it on fire, smell it, taste it, savor it….and watch it disappear as it turns to ashes. And the experience ends until we light up another one.
The same doesn’t have to be true for your humidor.
I think one of the reasons we enjoy them so much is that they are 100% products of living, growing nature — nothing artificial. Not to sound too tree-huggy, but I think we connect with them because WE, too, are creatures of the same living growing, organic dust of the earth. So what do you transport your cigars in? I think it’s an entirely appropriate response to apply the same standards of craftsmanship to the “caretaker” of your cigars as you give to their rollers.
Your cigars are made of organic compounds of the earth. Does it make sense to surround them with a hardened compound of chemical plastics, padded by off-gassing softer chemical compounds of the same? Surely not. Choose a humidor of Spanish Cedar that holds as many cigars as you’ll need, seals appropriately for as long as it will need to store them, and reflects your sense of style for where you’re going to enjoy them. Honor the craftsmanship of its contents by exemplifying that in itself. As an added bonus, you don’t have to set it on fire to appreciate the experience…you only have to look at it, feel its smooth wood grain and show it off to your friends whose little black plastic boxes have no soul. (Heck, put a sticker on it if it makes you feel better.)
And on this day — may the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
— Danny Jackson