Cohiba: A history of Communism and Culture

8:49Tom Chamberlin:I mean, it's also got the third fermentation, which was introduced very early on. So let's explain that,

8:55Nick Foulkes:just to dig a little deeper into that, because that's really important, is that tobacco, when it comes out, they always go through two stages of fermentation.

9:03Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, and what happens to the tobacco is it comes off the plant green and winds up in the factory blur-up brown. Yeah. So it cures, and then they put it in big piles and it ferments. And they've got to keep the temperature at a certain degree. I was 50 or something.

9:17Nick Foulkes:And fermentation is incredibly important because ultimately, the flavor profile of a cigar is all down to the oils fermenting within the leaves.

9:25Tom Chamberlin:But also, if you think about it, if you just stuck one of these things together, stuck green leaves together and set fire them, it tastes fucking horrible. Yeah, it'd be horrible.

9:32Nick Foulkes:It probably wouldn't even burn. So, and I've seen them in Nidale Gita, these barrels that they basically just pile them into. For the third fermentation. Yes, exactly. So what do you think that third fermentation does that means it's different to everything else?

9:46Tom Chamberlin:Well, they say, and they say, they say, first of all, it lowers nicotine content again. Yeah. And also, it makes it smoother.

9:55Nick Foulkes:Yes, okay.

9:56Tom Chamberlin:You've got a difference between old cigars and cigars made with old materials, which we'll come on to later. But these barrels are what makes Cohiba Cohiba.

10:06Nick Foulkes:Yes. I mean, do you remember the first Cohiba you ever smacked?

10:08Tom Chamberlin:I remember the first time I heard of it. and I just love the graphic design of it actually because they started off with a sort of very 70s type packaging with a colonial door, the top there. Oh, yeah, okay. And then they went for these white boxes with the tobacco leaf with the native Cuban head on it in profile. And the band, as you see, it's just so unlike the other. I mean, all the other factory bands are elaborated sort of ornate.

10:44Nick Foulkes:Illustrative kind of, yeah.

10:45Tom Chamberlin:Yes, I mean, you're not quite sort of got them biotapathy squeezed onto a sort of cigar label, but almost in some cases. Motifs, yes. And this is just simply says what it is. And it was immediately recognizable. I mean, you can spot it at a distance across the room, you know.

10:59Nick Foulkes:Yes. And so the other thing, which is obviously a big part of it, is that cigars are an agricultural product and they are given, for want of a better phrase, first dibs on which fields they want to harvest for Cohiba. Where did that come in and why do you think that's an interesting...

11:21Tom Chamberlin:Well, I mean, I asked them which the best ones were because we sorted from the premiere of Vegas in the Pino del Rio and all this. And I said, well, which ones are they? And they said, we can't tell you. And I kept on asking them in a different way and they still wouldn't tell me. So it is their secret. But I mean, they say, and I have no reason to doubt them, that it is the best, it's the pick of what there is.

11:42Nick Foulkes:You mentioned Pino de Rio. Fuelta Abajo and Pino de Rio, these are names that people might not understand and know, so can we just kind of quickly explain?

11:51Tom Chamberlin:It's like Bordeaux or Domain Remini Conti or something like that.

11:53Nick Foulkes:It's on the western side of Cuba. It's on the western side.

11:56Tom Chamberlin:It's a bit close to the Gulf of America, we're now encouraged to call it. You formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico. And it's about, given Cuban roads, a couple of hours drive out of Havana, two or three hours.

12:10Nick Foulkes:Very beautiful.

12:11Tom Chamberlin:Very beautiful.

12:12Nick Foulkes:Yeah, these sort of interesting sort of mounds are going to stick up like thumbs and fingers. It looks almost like Monument Valley or something.

12:18Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, exactly. Except with more green.

12:20Nick Foulkes:Slightly greener, exactly, yeah. And there's a lot of tobacco fields in Cuba, but this is considered the best.

12:26Tom Chamberlin:Yes, I mean, this is the sort of heart of where the good stuff's come from.

12:30Nick Foulkes:Yes, and annoyingly also where, hurricanes end up sort of tearing.

12:34Tom Chamberlin:Yes, it's the curing barns that are the real problem. It's not so much the plants. The curing barns, if they're knocked down, they're not the most solid of structures. You can build them quite quickly, but if you suddenly lose 100 curing barns, it's a hard stop, as you say.

12:51Nick Foulkes:And we'll come into why that affects the Cuban cigar industry later on when we talk about the behique and shortages. But let's just give the basis on what a cigar is and how Cohiba kind of made themselves a unique brand within that. So the cigar, as you mentioned, the seco leaf earlier, Cuba Cigars made up of three leaves. You have the Volado, the seco, the Ligero. They all play three different functions,

13:19Tom Chamberlin:which are combustibility, aroma, and strength. In that order. In that order.

13:25Nick Foulkes:And within those three leaves, you have master blenders who create the Linneas that each brand sort of send out.

13:33Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, I mean, the Vitolas are... The blend is determined by a master blender who will then adjust it for the cigar size. Interesting.

13:41Nick Foulkes:Okay. And Cohiba will go through its extra fermentation, but it will also get the pick of the crop. Does that mean that just by extension, quality control, all these sorts of things are better at the far end of the production process?

14:00Tom Chamberlin:They would argue not. I would argue that the Cuban quality is unfortunately not entirely consistent. Yeah. When it's great, it's great. But with a box, people, I mean, I don't know what people, what your experiences are, but there will often be one or maybe even two that are sort of unsmokable because they're rolled and there's those tightest tree trunks or something like that.

14:22Nick Foulkes:Yeah. And funnily enough, the smoking kind of cognoscente, like take great pride in being able to find the sort of twigs that are in there oh the twigs I remember I was

14:34Tom Chamberlin:sitting in front of the director of the Trinidad factory pulling I was smoking a Trinidad Robusto tea I think it was at the time and I was pulling out just like a magician sort of you know endless tree trunks

14:44Nick Foulkes:what we mean by twigs for those watching slash listening it hadn't been

14:48Tom Chamberlin:de-stemmed properly

14:48Nick Foulkes:yes exactly so leaves are stripped off the stems because the stems go very hard before they are then rolled into cigars and if they don't strip it properly, you have this very hard stem inside the cigar, which means that actually smoking it is very difficult. So the drawer is not very good. And there is something very satisfying about removing it and suddenly the drawer working. Oh, yeah, but I mean, but ultimately...

15:10Tom Chamberlin:But when I look back on it from my deathbed, I'll calculate how many hours I spent tunneling into Cuban cigars.

15:17Nick Foulkes:But also, with...

15:19Tom Chamberlin:But when they're great, I mean, there's nothing to beat them. I mean, on a good day, they leave everything standing, genuinely.

15:24Nick Foulkes:you know when you have a Gurkha Hiba it kind of reminds you that actually there is a reason why this is the considered the kind of premier brand of Cuban cigars

15:32Tom Chamberlin:it is premier brand of cigars around the world I would say Sumatra and what someone would call it aside you know Gurkha Gurkha Gurkha yeah

15:40Nick Foulkes:there's one called

15:41Tom Chamberlin:The Hooligan there's one called The Hooligan I think in America

15:43Nick Foulkes:is there

15:44Tom Chamberlin:and there's one also which is like a Toblerone it's three-sided

15:47Nick Foulkes:three-sided yeah no way

15:48Tom Chamberlin:I believe so I believe so I mean I can't I've written about it I saw it but I can't believe it myself what ingenuity I know I know I just think, why? That's a question nobody would ever ask.

15:58Nick Foulkes:So within the family of Cohiba, the various releases that have come out over the years that are particularly special.

16:04Tom Chamberlin:Well, first of all, it was a diplomatic gift. So for many, many years, Cohiba was a diplomatic gift.

16:09Nick Foulkes:So in the same vein as Trinidad.

16:12Tom Chamberlin:Yes, but it was a diplomatic gift. And I think it was launched in Europe in 1982 in the Ritz in Madrid. And that was when they launched Cohiba.

16:24Nick Foulkes:Okay. And announced it to the world as a... Yes. And obviously being in Spain because, you know... Well, it's strong ties.

16:29Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, strong ties. And at the same time, Davidoff was still making in Cuba before it went to the Dominican Republic.

16:36Nick Foulkes:Yeah, because it was in the 90s. The early 90s, they switched.

16:39Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, they switched. And they were made at the El Leguito factory.

16:42Nick Foulkes:Yes, they were. And there were some amazing cigars that came out of there. And a lot of slim ring gauge ones too. Ring gauge being, by the way, basically the size of the cigar. Yeah. every ring gauge is one 64th of an inch. Yes.

16:57Tom Chamberlin:So you can calculate yourself how many.

16:59Nick Foulkes:Yeah. If you have a 64 ring gauge cigar, it's an inch wide. And it's ludicrous. So let's move on to talk about Siglo. Yeah. Because that's the one, if you go into any cigar shop now, you may not be able to find all of them, especially the six, but ultimately that's the one you'll probably catch an eye the most. Yeah, I mean, what's interesting is

17:18Tom Chamberlin:for when I sort of came on, the cigars were getting a little fatter, So the Cohiba Robusto, which is a sort of short, fattish, stubby-ish thing. It's a 50-ring gauge. I forget that it's 5 and 3 quarters. Someone's going to correct me if I'm terribly wrong. But it's not a long thing, and you can probably polish it off in 45 minutes. And they can pick more tobacco, and it's also actually cooler to smoke. The very thin ones, you actually have to be quite good at smoking cigars. otherwise you get a hotspot in the middle of your tongue or something like that. Yes. Which is not nice.

17:55Nick Foulkes:Because obviously it's more targeted

17:56Tom Chamberlin:because the aperture is smaller. Yeah, yeah. It's like fixing a hose versus throwing a bucket.

18:01Nick Foulkes:Yeah, exactly.

18:02Tom Chamberlin:And it's a Churchill size, basically. Yeah. Which is, again, I mean, it's a fairly, you have to be not an experienced mountaineer. It's not Everest, exactly, but it's probably sort of the Eiger or something like that.

18:14Nick Foulkes:Ben Nevis. Yeah, Ben Nevis.

18:16Tom Chamberlin:I mean, whereas the sort of Siglo I, which we'll get onto, is sort of like a gentle stroll up a sort of...

18:21Nick Foulkes:The Siglo one is nice and straightforward.

18:22Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, I mean, and then if you want a slightly lighter blend, and I don't think the Cohiba, the classic range is that heavy, but if you want, I mean, I think it's medium to heavy. And if you want a sort of less aggressive version that still has plenty of flavor and aroma, the Siglo series, which is based upon the centuries since the discovery of Cuba by us, what our arrogant way we call the discovery of the new world in 1492 or whatever it was, But these were named after those centuries. So you have a Siglo I, Siglo II, Siglo III, Siglo IV, Siglo V. I can remember them all. And then Siglo VI as well came later in 2002, I think.

19:02Tom Chamberlin:Anyway, I remember when these came out, and they were perfect. My favorite became the Siglo IV. And I think these were all Davidoff Vitolas that had been switched over. And I think that one was the 5000. I can't be sure, but I think it was. In 2002, I believe it was, they introduced the Siglo 6.

19:20Nick Foulkes:Yes.

19:20Tom Chamberlin:Which is, for me, it was a very, very important cigar in so many ways. It's my favorite off-the-shelf Havana, if you can find them. I agree. And if you can afford them, which is another thing we're going to come on to later. Yeah. And it is, at its best, it is a fantastic, it's the kind of most representative, it's what all cigars should be like. Yes. Except when they're that one, which is even better.

19:42Nick Foulkes:But it also, it kind of hits the kind of, that sort of Al Capone archetype of a stogie. And so for people who kind of want to have a cigar and feel like, you know, they're kind of joining in that sort of merry band of, you know, between the teeth smoking, it's perfectly sized.

19:58Tom Chamberlin:And there's enough to keep it going for quite a while.

20:00Nick Foulkes:But also if you are interested in like, what a really nice tasting, well-blended cigar tastes like, the Cigar Six is perfect to kick things off.

20:10Tom Chamberlin:It's 52 ring gauge. It's slightly bigger than your average. But it was the first sort of super ring gauge in a Cuban, I think. And it just was a revelation. And it packed so much flavor in there because, obviously, it's a bigger cigar, so you can have a much more complex blend. And it just took over the world, really, that cigar. If you put together all the kind of supposed elitist bits of Cuban tobacco, so you've got the aged tobacco, you've got the Cohiba brand, and you've got an anniversary, you've got a different size, and you've got this five-year-old tobacco. It's a sort of super-duper. It's like having a kind of, there was a racing car that used to have both turbo and superchargers.

20:54Tom Chamberlin:So, you know, it's putting everything on it. And, I mean, so those should really be the best. I happen to think that an aged cigar is better than a cigar made with aged tobacco, although, of course, there are exceptions to that rule, like the Reserva Partagos Series D No. 4.

21:13Nick Foulkes:Can you do both? Can you get the cigar? Of course you can. What's the finish and then agent?

21:17Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, but then you could do that. That's a very interesting suggestion, but it would take a fucking lifetime, you know. Okay. You've had cigars that are 10, 15, 20 years old.

21:28Nick Foulkes:I have a box of Monty A's from 1996. Which is a fantastic thing to have. You just don't want to... It's one of the great experiences.

21:38Tom Chamberlin:Yeah. I mean, you know, that is something really, it's great when you come across something like that because it's unique, you know?

21:44Nick Foulkes:Yeah, for sure.

21:45Tom Chamberlin:What happens with the aging? Aging is very difficult. I mean, it's a real science and nobody's, I have yet to meet somebody who can actually explain it to me properly, how you expect them to go. But it's not a parabolic curve. It's more of a sort of oscillations. So it'll get in and out of...

21:58Nick Foulkes:It's one of the earliest things you ever taught me about cigar smoking.

22:01Tom Chamberlin:Is that right?

22:01Nick Foulkes:Yeah, it's not like wine where it just sort of kind of goes up or doesn't go up at all. but wine is linear

22:09Tom Chamberlin:whereas it goes up and down. It's also about the half-life of the leaves. So, for example, Ligero. You'd have thought a strong cigar would age well and a weak cigar would just disappear. Actually, what happens is because they've got Ligero, Ligero actually not decays but sort of loses its power more rapidly than, say, something like Secco, which gives aroma and flavor.

22:36Nick Foulkes:Yeah. Because it's got more oils in it.

22:39Tom Chamberlin:I don't know why. I mean, listen, Tommy. I mean, I just... You just write the book on this stuff. I just write the book on this stuff. I don't bother myself with things like that. But anyway, this leaf, which is the Fortaleza. So, you know, I have had brilliantly aged Punch or H. Upman even. And I've had pretty mild, actually, Bolivar, which is because... And Bolivar is a sort of head-rippingly strong brand. and then you've got to put it away for 20 years and it sort of becomes really quite docile because of all the Ligero losing its kick. Yeah, I see. Let's get back to Cohiba.

23:15Nick Foulkes:Yeah. So, okay, so we sort of touched on Grand Reserva. We can go further into that another time. But with regards to Cohiba, the other thing that was released obviously was Behike.

23:26Tom Chamberlin:Yeah. It was first just a limited edition Cohiba issued for a, I think it was for an anniversary. I think it was the 40th anniversary or something. I don't know. Yes, yes. I think it was. And I think it was rolled by one Lady Norma and she signed all the inner part of the bands. So it was a very special release. The Behike that we know as a standard production range started in 2010, I think.

23:53Nick Foulkes:Yeah.

23:53Tom Chamberlin:So it was 2010 that this came out. The Behike or BHK, just like you have Domaine Romani Conti, shortened to DRC. The Behike shortened to BHK. in 52, 54, and 56 ring gauges. So from kind of fat to sort of obese in terms of things. But they're absolutely delicious cigars. I mean, they are, and that's because of this leaf called the Medio Tiempo, which was, again, another thing that was used in the countryside. And it sort of fell into abeyance. I mean, it's basically the top leaves of the tree. You get the top leaves, you get more exposure to the sun, and they're more intense. There's much more, what's that?

24:32Tom Chamberlin:thing that happened with plants. Photosynthesis. Photosynthesis. You got it. Bingo. There's a lot of photosynthesis going on.

24:39Nick Foulkes:Don't ask me too many science questions. I'll be in real trouble.

24:41Tom Chamberlin:Very, very dark little leaves. And you don't get them every year. And they just, either they add something to it or they suggest to the mind that they add something to it. But they are, if you're offered a behica ever, take it. Yes. It's a fantastic thing.

24:56Nick Foulkes:Yeah. And again, is now sort of prohibitively expensive.

25:01Tom Chamberlin:Yes, but it's become like a brand within a brand.

25:03Nick Foulkes:Yes, for sure. And you've smoked a lot of cigars over the years. You understand that time, often, when you give a cigar time in its humidor, you allow it to kind of get rid of it. I get people called tannins in wines, for example. It's sort of the equivalent. Yes, I mean... It sort of goes through that. But my question is ultimately is that, do you think that there's a sort of secret there with regards to understanding how a cigar will change over six months' time after they come up with the initial blend, or at least years, actually, even sometimes, because Cuba can be slow.

25:36Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, I mean, I think years is probably more appropriate. I mean, often exports will be held up by a shortage of boxes. A harvest will be disrupted by a shortage of string.

25:48Nick Foulkes:I mean, literally. You've seen that happen, haven't you? First time you went to Cuba, and wrappers, obviously, are grown separately from mother tobacco, and they're grown with this sort of like, it's like a muslin.

25:58Tom Chamberlin:They put a muslin over the top. So you get these very big leaves, but they are not sort of scorched at all. So the idea is that they should be beautiful and they have a sort of tensile quality.

26:07Nick Foulkes:So they can wrap around without breaking. But you said that you witnessed it once when you were there and because of a shortage of string, it meant that they couldn't put the muslin up.

26:18Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, and they couldn't actually, I mean, it was crazy. And because of the difficult life that they have in Cuba, so many things that we regard as completely trivial. for them is a sort of quest.

26:32Nick Foulkes:Yes. And a treasure, a treasured item. Yes. Bar of Sabres is a treasure treasure. Yes, very much so.

26:38Tom Chamberlin:When Freddie came out to Cuba, my son, his mother said, do you have any toothpaste? Oh, we'll get that at the hotel. And then he had to go to a black market shop and pay 20 bucks for a tube of toothpaste.

26:51Nick Foulkes:Well, what I'll make him find out the hard way. Yes, yes. Before we go on to Kosas, talk about the whole idea of shortages and how that's an issue. Because we could go back to the 80s and talk about blue mold.

27:05Tom Chamberlin:Yeah.

27:07Nick Foulkes:And blue mold, of course, there was a blue mold that white oil was 90 % of...

27:12Tom Chamberlin:90%. It's always 90%.

27:14Nick Foulkes:Yeah, it's always 90 % of tobacco. Whether it's a number of Swiss watchmakers using their jobs or whatever. 90%. 90%. Yes. So blue mold was basically a disease in the least. Some people will tell you out there

27:25Tom Chamberlin:that it was a CIA thing.

27:27Nick Foulkes:Yes, to kind of bring Cuba further to its knees and stuff.

27:30Tom Chamberlin:Instead of which, the research institute just devised a disease-resistant strain.

27:33Nick Foulkes:A disease-resistant strain of tobacco, which meant that they sort of live to fight another day.

27:40Tom Chamberlin:Yes.

27:41Nick Foulkes:And so, but again, when 90%, let's say, of the supply goes away, obviously shortages, therefore demand will remain, but supply is short and therefore prices shoot up. So is it your experience over the time of being, smoking and also writing about cigars, is that there have kind of been these sort of, you know, panic periods?

28:07Tom Chamberlin:Yes, often. I mean, I remember when double Coronas were the thing to smoke and you couldn't get them for love nor money. So we were going through Paris Duty Free with Edward, I think, still before they had the train. And we saw this, in Duty Free, we saw these two cabinets of 50 and it was literally like we'd sort of got the Holy Grail, you know, just dashed over and sort of flung ourselves at these boxes. And... Edward being the great Eddie, Edward's Harkin. Edward's Harkin, yes. Of Davidoff. Of Davidoff, of St. James. He's a fantastic man. And now, of course, it's totally out of fashion, but in the time, it was fashionable and you couldn't get anything.

28:43Tom Chamberlin:So that was something that you were really focused on getting and couldn't get because, you know, you need quite large leaves and all that for the wrapper. there was also the special period when you couldn't get anything this was after it stopped being a client state of the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union ceased to exist and then now we had the hurricanes which came through and inopportunely sort of basically I mean decimated only means taking one in every ten out it's more than decimated it sort of carved a really nasty but what they did was they chucked the prices right up on some of the brands, including, of course, Cohiba, which then, it used to be in different countries, there was some massive arbitrage between the ones you bought in Spain and the ones you bought in London.

29:31Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, yeah. Now everything's at the same price, which is super expensive, which is kind of Hong Kong rates.

29:34Nick Foulkes:It was the Hong Kong rates. Because Hong Kong was, if you wanted to go buy cigars in Hong Kong, that would be the highest. If you wanted to spend the most money. Yeah, that would be the most money.

29:42Tom Chamberlin:So, I mean, what used to be a, let's say, I don't know, a 30-pound cigar. I mean, even the Bejica when it started was sort of like£35 for a 52 or something. And now that cigar is probably, you'll probably find someone selling it for£400 or£500.

29:58Nick Foulkes:Yep. Because there's so many factors that can play a part in...

30:02Tom Chamberlin:They have the embargo, which basically means that they've got another... They're trying to do all this with their hands tied behind their back and one of the legs in a manacle. Yes.

30:09Nick Foulkes:And then on top of that, therefore with supply issues, you have price hikes. Yes. And so, obviously, the Cohiba Robusto Supremus is a really good example of this. It's like you're holding a baby.

30:26Tom Chamberlin:It's fantastic.

30:27Nick Foulkes:Yes, I mean, it is an enormous thing.

30:29Tom Chamberlin:But you're holding it with that sort of reverence and care that you do a child. I think it's only important.

30:35Nick Foulkes:Well, I think... Probably costs more than a child, actually. Well, I was going to say, if somebody heard what the price tag on this was, they'd understand that ultimately, these were originally on the shelves at£40 a stick. Yes. And now, you cannot pick them up for less than£700. How many boxes do you have of those?

30:50Nick Foulkes:I don't think my insurance people want to know.

30:56Tom Chamberlin:It is such a good cigar. I had one in front of the telly the other day. Did you? Yes, I mean, I just thought, when am I going to, because if you build up a special occasion, special occasion, and then it's never going to be the right time.

31:06Nick Foulkes:It's never, it's always, it's always the next special occasion.

31:08Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, and I thought, fuck it. I mean, I might as well just see it. And it tasted absolutely wonderful. It's delicious. It's very exclusively. What, nine, 10, 11 years on? Was that 2014? Yeah, 2014. Yeah, so 11 years on. It's absolutely outstanding. Yeah. And I thought it was all over the place, flavor-wise to start with.

31:24Nick Foulkes:But that is why, okay, so this is why you could easily pick them up on 40 pounds a stick for at least the first year. Yes. And that's the interesting thing about Cuban cigars is that you can almost guarantee that a limited edition cigar will double in price at some point in its life due to the fact that people smoke them and then they've become fewer and fewer.

31:43Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, I mean, yes, I think you can probably say that.

31:46Nick Foulkes:Whereas with this, what I found really interesting was that ultimately people didn't really think much of it when it first came out. And so it held in the way that the talisman didn't.

31:54Tom Chamberlin:The talisman... It flew in terms of price.

31:58Nick Foulkes:Like, it was so fast. Because people were going in and buying sort of 10, 20 boxes at a time because they were like, this is just the greatest thing that...

32:05Tom Chamberlin:And they were not expensive. A box of 10 for 300 and something? Correct. They were 30, 35 quid a second. Yeah, which I mean, it's still quite a lot of money for a single-go tobacco product. Yes. But at the same time, if you look at what they've now regularly think, I mean, and it was not a scarce cigar. I guess it makes one think about cigars becoming a,

32:30Nick Foulkes:you know, or trying to sort of elevate themselves

32:32Tom Chamberlin:into being a bona fide luxury item. Well, I think it is a luxury item. I mean, I would say one definition of luxury is an agricultural product to which human intervention adds value. So gold is a naturally occurring product, not agricultural, but you know what I mean. But when it is handled by people at Van Cleef and Arpels, it becomes worth four or five times what it does in its natural raw state.

32:56Nick Foulkes:But there must be a distinction, though, between these and cigarettes. Yes. Because...

33:00Tom Chamberlin:I mean, cigarettes are basically a means of getting nicotine into the system. Yeah. That is fine. I mean, but it's sort of... I mean, they dry it, So they pay less due to it with weight, and then they refatten it with something, I mean, something appalling sounding. I don't know, something's a Benzied. They put them in a room, and then they sort of plump them up with some sort of appalling. And then, I mean, you know, I mean, nothing wrong with it, but I don't think that... Each to their own. Each to their own. I mean, exactly. I mean, we'll be doing vapes on the program next. Yeah.

33:33Nick Foulkes:Your guy's just sort of luxury vaping.

33:35Tom Chamberlin:Yes. No, I mean, I think that's what's so unfair is that it's a bit like saying Buckfast tonic wine, which you know is very fun, very popular with the street drinker. Yeah. Or Carlsberg special brew. Yes. Which is, again, a nice intoxicant of a sort of relative affordable, accessible one. It's the same thing as, say, a bottle of Domaine Remini-Conti or Chateau Le Pin or whatever.

33:56Nick Foulkes:Au Brion.

33:57Tom Chamberlin:Yeah. I mean, it's not like for like. No, no. I mean, it's not. I mean, you know, and also, So it is a cultural product. It is more than just a luxury thing or a bottle of wine or whatever. It is actually integral to the character of the country.

34:17Nick Foulkes:Yes.

34:18Tom Chamberlin:In the way that wine is in France.

34:19Nick Foulkes:Yeah. And do you think that there's an issue with the fact that things like quality control are still not quite there? In terms of the consumer these days?

34:30Tom Chamberlin:I mean, I think if you're a consumer, you have to have... If you're paying that much money for something, that you're going to be basically downing in, not in one, but you know what I mean? I mean, you don't even want it to go out when you're smoking it because even relighting it is deleterious to the flavor. It's half done already. So, I mean, really, you're having one shot at this thing and you're spending 700 quid on it. You want it to be absolutely perfect. I think you're right to expect that. Oddly enough, again, with this sort of wonderful kind of Kafka-like logic, there's a beautiful cigar, the Coaba.

35:06Tom Chamberlin:Yes. The Coaba. It's a very interesting shaped cigar. It's sort of like a funnel with a sort of double-ended torpedo. So it's not even like a... It's a very difficult cigar to make. And of course, it's one of the most affordable ones to get.

35:20Nick Foulkes:The Salamones and things like that.

35:21Tom Chamberlin:Salamones and the little one, the Divinos, I think. The little one is fantastic. And I mean, that's a cigar that is... Nobody knows about it, really. Wrong, totally unfashionable size. Weird shape. And yet it would take somebody of considerable skill to make it. Yes. So this is what I like about Cuba so much, is that they have these irrational things that are seen as completely normal.

35:41Nick Foulkes:It's one of the reasons why San Cristobal is one of your favorite brands, because ultimately everyone forgot about it for years. Nobody smoked them.

35:46Tom Chamberlin:San Cristobal is a fantastic cigar.

35:48Nick Foulkes:There were loads of their cigars that nobody had smoked.

35:50Tom Chamberlin:I know, I've got a lot of jars of that still. I mean, it's brilliant. They're fantastic cigars. But why do you keep going back to Cuba? First of all, because I'm a snob. Yeah. Secondly, it's what they do best. It's their shop window. Yeah. I mean, it's, and it's also what makes, I mean, there's also the supreme irony that it is a socialist country making one of the most sort of obvious luxury and status conferring products.

36:21Nick Foulkes:Yes.

36:22Tom Chamberlin:You know, it's recognizable. It's about as recognizable as Ferrari, Dior, Chanel, Hermes.

36:28Nick Foulkes:It's, I would say, one of the most recognizable luxury brands in the world.

36:32Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, and it is a brand. It is a luxury brand. It is a brand. And that sort of happened almost by accident. I mean, they set out because they set out to make it an example of what the revolution could, the triumph of the revolution could bring about was this. And it began as Celia Sanchez's sort of almost a social working thing, you know, to get women working in this thing. And then it became, the irony, obviously, it became such a sort of, you know, look at me thing.

37:00Nick Foulkes:Bourgeois.

37:01Tom Chamberlin:Bourgeois. Well, I mean, I'm all for bourgeois. Bourgeois. Yeah, we like bourgeois.

37:04Nick Foulkes:We're fine with bourgeois, but it's sort of counterintuitive. Well, no, I mean, not for them. With regards to the revolution.

37:10Tom Chamberlin:Not for them, because they can, it's fine. I mean, because it's them, and now it's a huge earner since the prices have been put up. It's a massive earner for the country. I mean, it always was a big earner, but I think big major shares have been bought by private investors. Yeah. And they are applying a certain business rigor to it.

37:26Nick Foulkes:Yes. And creating a brand new asset class within the luxury market, because you have people who are buying cigars without the intention of smoking them.

37:36Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, they keep them as collectors or they trade. Yes. And it's like, I mean, we've had... With no difference to wine or whiskey. And whiskey seems to me, I don't understand the whiskey one at all. I mean, people pay immense sums. Immense sums. Immense sums. I mean, it makes buying one of these look like sort of, you know, the coin you give to a beggar. You probably give a beggar a box of these or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, have a ton of these. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then these whiskeys are just insane. And of course, brown spirits are sort of going lower and lower in sales, aren't they?

38:06Tom Chamberlin:I mean, I think you made the joke, or I made the joke, that Richie Sunak would have been better off putting all the country's money into Cohiba. That was me.

38:14Nick Foulkes:Yeah, well, it was about Sir Keir Starmer sort of hoping, I was sort of giving him advice, saying if he wants to get the country's finances back up and running, he needs to put his money into cigars. Buy food boxes of cigars, yeah. Yeah, because he...

38:26Tom Chamberlin:Gordon Brown sold the gold at sort of rock-bottom value. So at least they got space to put cigars in. Yes. Bank of England, massively the biggest humidor in the world. Exactly. I remember there was a big boom in cigars in the 1990s. Huge. You had Madonna smoking them. You had Cindy Crawford smoking them. J-Lo. J-Lo. Everybody was smoking them.

38:46Nick Foulkes:Michael Jordan was a big one.

38:47Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, but men, women, it was a real celebrity thing to do. Do you think Cigar Aficionado played a point? Oh, yes. But I think also it's part symptom, part cause. It's both symptom and cause. Yeah.

38:57Nick Foulkes:Schwarzenegger, of course.

38:59Tom Chamberlin:Schwarzenegger, of course.

39:00Nick Foulkes:Tom Selleck. Tom Selleck, I love Tom Selleck. He was a great smoker of cigars. Jack Nicholson?

39:05Tom Chamberlin:Great smoker. Yep. He always looked terrific. He looked like the kind of person that ought to be smoking a cigar.

39:11Nick Foulkes:Yeah, but every picture of him, he's a very photogenic guy and a very charismatic man in front of the lens. But when he has a cigar, it adds something to him. And weirdly enough, and I'm one of those people who actually, I feel like Churchill is a terrible ambassador for cigar smoking. He didn't convey a lot of cool. No. But I think it worked the other way around. The cigar made Churchill rather than Churchill making the cigar.

39:36Tom Chamberlin:It's like Fidel and the cigar. You expect it. It's part of the sort of get up with the revolutionary cap and heavy boots and the cigar. And likewise with Churchill, it's the Homburg and it's the kind of, it's what Kirby would call a stroller and a cigar, you know.

39:51Nick Foulkes:We call it the black lounge suit.

39:52Tom Chamberlin:Yes. I mean, well, it's stripy trousers. It's the Chief's outfit. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, you know, and that's what, the cigar is an integral part of that. of their public persona.

40:03Nick Foulkes:Yes. And another person who made cigars look really interesting and cool and sophisticated was Roger Moore.

40:10Tom Chamberlin:He was brilliant, Roger Moore. I went to the Piaget exhibition in Paris last year and they had his cigar cutter and his lighter. Oh, very good. Yeah, I mean, Roger Moore's cigar cutter would be a really cool thing to have.

40:24Nick Foulkes:I remember I went to Simon Cajderian's place on the Pullman Gallery where it was open. I remember standing there and there was a... a chap who's about my height. Yeah. And, which I know because it's unusual. And he was pointing at something at the bottom shelf. And the guy goes, may I help you, sir? And he goes, I'm interested in buying this thing here. I really like to have a look. And he goes, where are you from, sir? And he goes, I'm from Germany. And he goes, very good, sir. Can I just point out that these are Herman Goering's cigar cutters? Oh, God. And the guy goes, it's not a problem.

41:05Tom Chamberlin:Cohiba's even been into space.

41:07Nick Foulkes:Has it?

41:07Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, Major General Hernandez. Haven't you heard of Major General Hernandez?

41:10Nick Foulkes:No, I haven't heard of Major General Hernandez. Tell me about this.

41:12Tom Chamberlin:Brigadier General, sorry. The Brigadier. The good Brigadier. The Brigadier General. He went into space with a Cohiba. So, I mean, it's... With who? What? Who? The Russians? Oh, no, he went to the... Probably the Russians went up to the space station. I mean, I wasn't there. I've only read about it in books. I've only read about it in books. I would love to see him floating around. So he has been taken to space? Yes, apparently. I mean, you know. I wonder how it smokes up in space. It doesn't smoke very well at high altitude. Did you know this? Because I've tried smoking at the top of the Hannankam in whatever that sort of Austrian resort is called.

41:46Tom Chamberlin:And what changes? It's the air is too cold. Oh, right. And it just, it tastes so bitter. That's why smoking them in Cuba is so good because you're at ground level and the air is moist, so there's no difference in temperature. Here you've got something coming in, something very hot, very cold. Yes, okay. So at sea level, it's sort of, especially in Cuba, it's almost perfect equanimity. So there's no difference in temperatures. Don't get that kind of harsh burn. Got it. But it's such a shame because I thought, I'm going to have a nice cigar now, watch the kids ski down this very steep hill. And then I just touched it.

42:18Tom Chamberlin:It's just a bitter twigs. I mean, they weren't twigs, but it's horrible. It was like sort of, yeah, I mean, I had to smoke it because when you start something like that, you have to finish it. But God, it wasn't a pleasant experience.

42:28Nick Foulkes:Castro gave up smoking, didn't he?

42:29Tom Chamberlin:Yes, he gave up smoking in quite a long time.

42:31Nick Foulkes:Because the WHO gave him an award or something, and he was like, oh. Yes, he couldn't accept it while smoking a cigar. You can imagine that he went up kind of,

42:40Tom Chamberlin:thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. No, and then he said, which is such a shame he had to give up, but, you know, because you want them, do you want them to be sort of smoking? It's what they should do. It's like Greek shippeners, they have to have big glasses, you know.

42:51Nick Foulkes:Yeah, you have to. But it feels like there's somewhere there's going to be a sort of unsmoked Castro stash.

42:58Tom Chamberlin:Well, the boxes signed by Castro, of course, go for a fortune. Total fortune, yes. And, I mean, they were expensive when they were bought, but I mean, now, I mean, God, I don't know what people, because it's become more of a collector's market.

43:11Nick Foulkes:Yeah.

43:12Tom Chamberlin:You know, a box signed by, I mean, a box, the best would be a box of, you buy it at the auction at the festival, and it would be a box of unusual size Cohibas in a hundred of those, in a humidor signed by Castro. Yeah. I mean, that would be your kind of dream thing. Yeah.

43:29Nick Foulkes:But they do have a shelf life. I mean, like if you got one that was, you know, early days of Cohiba, they may not taste particularly good.

43:37Tom Chamberlin:Well, I don't know. I mean, but that's a lot of you. And you'd be mad to smoke them because that would destroy the value. It's like, you know.

43:41Nick Foulkes:Yeah.

43:42Tom Chamberlin:Then you'd be obliged to smoke them.

43:44Nick Foulkes:But there's curiosity that comes into it too. Of course there's curiosity.

43:46Tom Chamberlin:But we know what it did to the cat.

43:50Nick Foulkes:I remain Tom Chamberlain and this has been The Luxury Dispatch. the podcast that tells all the stories you didn't realize you wanted to know and answers all the questions you are yet to ask. Please do like, subscribe, and if you have any comments, we look forward to reading them. Agree, disagree, suggest other topics you'd like to hear us cover. No review will go unread. Thank you for listening.