The American Spectator
July 2005 – August 2005
Cigar Symphony
by Jed Babbin
WINSTON CHURCHILL SAID, iSmoking cigars is like falling in love;
first you are attracted to its shape; you stay for its flavor; and
you must always remember never, never let the flame go out.i Mark
Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, and Churchill are perhaps historyis three
most famous cigar smokers. Twain said heid decline an invitation to
Heaven if he couldnit smoke cigars there, but never shared his method
of judging cigars. His admonition that ia woman is just a woman, but
a good cigar is a smokei is of no use to modern man. Weill probably
never know, but quantity probably weighed more heavily than quality
to Grantis taste. Only Churchill left us instruction on how to choose
a cigar. He said, iOf two cigars pick the longest and the strongest.i
Everyone who deeply enjoys a good cigar knows why Churchillis analogy
to love is perfect and why his rule of choice is perfectly wrong.
Choosing a cigar is an intensely personal matter. My father followed
Churchillis rule. He smoked the strongest cigars imaginable, but when
old enough to try one I quickly learned that some cigars are too
heavy, bitter, or even intoxicating. My taste varies with the time of
day, what Iim doing, and even my mood. The best cigar for an
afternoon aboard the tractor mowing grass isnit usually the right one
to accompany a brandy after dinner. During Bill Clintonis tenure, a
larger, stronger cigar, or two or three, were necessary companions
while writing a column about the villainy of the week. Yet another
type of cigar is appropriate for a shooting event or a long drive.
Because there are so many variations of taste, the cigar makeris task
is a complex one. Mass-produced cigars are one thing. Itis enough for
them that they have a consistent — usually awful — taste, uniform
size and weight, and above all are produced cheaply by the tens of
thousands without a humanis touch. The premium cigars, those aimed at
the discriminating consumer and the true connoisseur, are a much more
complex task.
Making a great cigar, I guessed, was probably like making a great
wine. What kind of tobacco seed is used, the soil in which it is
grown, how it is aged, and the skill of the cigar roller — the
person who actually forms the leaves into the cigar — must, I
assumed, be essential to the cigar makeris art. As far as that goes,
itis right. But thereis much more. As I have learned from two grand
masters of the cigar-making art, creating a great cigar is less like
making a fine wine than composing a beautiful symphony.
ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO I came across a cigar brand that was new to me.
It was a Dominican cigar and the label said iPaul Garmirian.i I
bought a few and, about a week later, a few more. Soon, I was smoking
little else, other than another cryptically labeled cigar, the iAvo
Uvezian.i The PGs had an oaky, nutlike flavor. Full-flavored but not
overbearing, they seemed to meet almost every need. The Avo, a bit
stronger, covered my more restive moods. The PGs and Avos became a
consistent habit, broken only by a few Cuban cigars that, ah, somehow
fell into my hands. Then, at a cigar dinner at the Lansdowne Resort
about six years ago, a gent with a broad smile came up, stuck out his
hand to shake mine, and said, iHi. Iim Paul Garmirian.i We have since
become very good friends. Thanks to Paul, and his kind introduction
to Hendrick Kelner, president of Tabacos Dominicanos (TD), I have
learned a bit about cigars.
Mr. Hendrick Kelner is an engineer by profession. Of Dutch ancestry,
Kelner grew up in the Dominican Republic and has been working in and
studying the manufacture of cigars since he graduated from college.
Dr. Paul Garmirian — like his pal Avo Uvezian — is of Armenian
ancestry. He emigrated to the United States from Lebanon after
studying in London. Garmirian is an academic, and expert in
international relations. Like Kelner, he seemed destined for his
career in cigars, having grown up under a cigar connoisseur for a
father.
Together, Kelner and Garmirian make my favorite cigars. The two are
to cigars what Rachmaninoff and Aaron Copland are to music. They
donit just make cigars, they compose them lovingly, arranging sizes,
shapes, and tastes for different smokers in just the same way a
composer arranges his music for orchestras and bands.
Garmirian takes pride in his cigars, but only a small part of the
credit for their taste Heis told me again and again, iItis 90 percent
Henky and Eladio and 10 percent me.i iHenkyi — Hendrick Kelner — is
one of the leading tobacco growers and makers of premium cigars in
the world. And yes, Virginia, that includes Cuba, whose cigar
industry is declining dramatically. iEladioi — Mr. Eladio Diaz — is
Kelneris chief iblender,i the expert who takes the tobaccos grown,
aged, and fermented under Kelneris exacting standards and blends them
to the desired strength and taste. Kelner is the maker of the
world-famous Davidoff cigars as well as the Avo, Griffin, and PG
Cigars.
Wait a minute, you say. Tobacco is grown and harvested, sure. But
aged? Fermented? Now we are back to wines. Tobacco, according to both
Kelner and Garmirian, is — like grapes — better in some years than
others. And to make a great cigar, it needs to be grown carefully,
harvested at the precise moment of maturation, and cured before it
is, literally, fermented. In Garmirianis The Gourmet Guide to Cigars,
he quotes Kelner as saying, iA complete curing is realized in curing
barns where the starch in the leaves is converted into fructose and
sugar products which ultimately convert into alcohol thus bringing
about the process of fermentation.i The fermentation and aging remove
the tobaccois naturally bitter oils, ammonia, and other chemicals
that would produce the wrong flavors. Before tobacco becomes a PG
cigar, it has been cured, fermented, and aged for four years or more.
When you buy that PG cigar, it will be comprised of tobaccos that can
be up to five years old.
Kelneris growing the tobacco, aging and fermenting it, is engineering
and science. The remaining 10 percent is Paulis art.
PAUL GARMIRIAN IS A RENAISSANCE MAN. He speaks six languages, plays
classical guitar, and has a Ph.D. from Catholic University, where he
used to teach. As Paul told me, his taste — his palate for cigar
flavors — is partly nature (his daughter has it) and partly nurture.
His father was a cigar aficionado. From the time Paul could walk, he
was around people who smoked fine Cuban cigars. He tasted champagne,
caviar, and while a youth found himself fascinated with the
tantalizing smell of cigars in the box. As he explains, about 80
percent of taste is smell. Paulis nose — what little talent it
didnit inherit — was trained by decades of smelling the best cigars
in the world.
As youid expect of an academic, Paul decided to research and write a
book about cigars. When the first edition of his Gourmet Guide to
Cigars came out in 1990, the industry greeted it warmly. He met Avo
Uvezian and, through him, Hendrick Kelner. Events — propelled by the
almost instantaneous friendship between Kelner and Garmirian — led
to the launch of the PG cigar brand later that same year. And thatis
when a theory of music was brought to the world of cigars.
In 1991, Paul was sitting in Kelneris office, talking to him and
Eladio Diaz, the chief blender of cigars at TD. Paul is a guitarist
of 50 years, and thinks in musical terms. He said, iI was sitting in
his office and I was trying to communicate the fact that the
particular blend had a high-pitched tone and I compared it to a
piccolo. I said we needed more bass.i Garmirian wondered how his
explanation was received.
Five years later, Garmirian again visited Kelneris Dominican Republic
office to discuss new cigar blends. In that meeting, Kelner turned to
Eladio Diaz and said the particular blend needed iless alto and more
bass.i Garmirian told me, iI said to Henky, I remember a few years
ago when I said that I felt awkward because, maybe, you thought I was
crazy. He — a little tongue-in-cheek — said no, Paul, we have
adopted your music theory on the blending of cigars. I told him that
I thought that I write the music and they perform it to perfection,
and [Kelner] told me, eNo, you donit write music, you write
symphonies.ii
I asked Mr. Kelner, who makes cigars for every taste, how that theory
is applied at the extremes. How do you satisfy the customer who wants
a Wagnerian cigar? Whatis the difference between that one and the
cigar for someone who wants to smoke a Tchaikovsky?
Kelner said: iWagner and Tchaikovsky are very different and they
would be two completely different cigars. Wagner — because of his
personality, character, and the era that he had to live in Germany,
as well as his deep anarchist conviction of his youth — his music
was influenced as revolutionary and nationalist. It could be
summarized as a strong music that was torture to the criticis ear.
The passionate Wagnerians are in ecstasies with his melodies and then
exhausted, fatigued of their own pleasure. A Wagner cigar would be a
strong cigar, of intense flavor, stimulating, exciting, that the
smoker becomes exhausted and then enjoying later its aftertaste. It
would be cigar for one kind of smoker.i
For other smokers, Hendrick and Paul offer other cigars. For example,
Kelner said, iTchaikovsky [was] a different personality. Influenced
by the death of his mother when he was a boy, a fragile personality
that avoided physical contact with the opposite sex, he idealized the
woman, creating pure, feminine characters in his works (Tatiana,
MarIa, Liza, Juana de Arco). Therefore his music was soothing,
harmonious, and spiritual, which compared to a cigar would be a
smooth and harmonious cigar, with the complexity of a genius but
without attacking the senses. It would be a goodO cigar [with which]
to meditate.i Or, as I can attest, with which to write. DON’T THINK
ABOUT GENERAL GRANT when you go out to buy your next smoke. Grant
said he only knew two songs: one was Yankee Doodle, and the other
wasnit. Think about your music and apply it to your cigar. Is your
favorite CD Borodin or Rossini? Copland, Mancini, or the Rolling
Stones? Do you know what you will be doing when you smoke it? Do you
have an inkling of what your mood might be? If you think in those
terms, and carefully absorb the scent of the unlit cigar, youill make
the right choice. My tastes tend to Ahmad Jamal on the piano, or
Tchaikovsky, or Aaron Copland.
Tomorrow, as I climb on the seat of my big tractor for a three-hour
mowing session, Iill have a big stick in my pocket. The PG
Celebration is the music of America, and big enough to last through
five acres of mowing. Itis summer, and though Loudoun Countyis
rolling, grassy hills arenit the Appalachian Mountains, when I light
up I will taste Coplandis iAppalachian Spring.i Jed Babbin, an
American Spectator contributing editor, is the author of Inside the
Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think.