Cigar salutations from the Old Glory Society*
If you’re a cigar smoker, you get used to people cracking wise about the cigar in your hand or the smoke in your vicinity. They either dig cigars or despise them and that means that, instantly, they either dig or despise me unless of course I actually speak to them in which case the despise ratio goes way up. They say things like, “Is that a Cuban cigar?” or “You gonna smoke that thing?” or “Hey bro, nice stogie!” None of these people know anything about cigars and they use terms like stogie to pretend they do. I usually ignore these funny little people with their funny little quips and their tinsy-weensy IQs, but when they imply I’m somehow in possession of a stogie I take offense. And I’ll tell you why.
In the late nineteenth century, when cigar smoking became a pretty big deal in America, the types of cigars American gentlemen smoked were broken up into four large categories. At the top of the heap were so-called Clear Havanas. These cigars were made in America using 100 percent Cuban tobacco. They featured excellent craftsmanship, were available in about twenty widely-recognized sizes and were generally identified by a Spanish name that indicated the cigar’s general appearance, like Brevas (flat) or Perfecto (tapered at both ends). Prices for a Clear Havana started at fifteen cents apiece and these were the grandest, most expensive smokes that could be attained.
The next group of cigars was known as Seed or Havana Seed cigars. These cigars were a blend of domestic tobacco and Havana leaf and typically came in three or four styles with several variations in shape or length. They sold principally for ten cents or maybe two for a quarter and small shops would often specialize in these ten-cent cigars, not the very best, but a damn fine cigar by the standards of the day.
Then you had the Five-Cent cigar. Manufactured primarily in larger eastern and midwestern cities, nickel cigars were made from domestic tobacco and possibly some imported leaf and came in only two or three basic shapes. Manufacturers often used machinery or at least cigar molds to make these cigars. With this reduction in labor costs, production expenses went down, permitting manufacturers to sell a fairly good quality cigar for only five cents. By 1900, one-third of the industry’s labor force was female and a majority of five cent cigar makers were women.
And so now, the punchline. The final group of smokes in the early years of the American cigar were called Stogies. They were most often sold two for five cents – the cheapest end of the spectrum. Stogies were viewed in the trade as a distinctly separate item manufactured by an altogether different set of producers. Better cigars were made with long pieces of filler leaf, but Stogies were made using domestically-grown “short” chopped up filler. Many were made without binders and no attention was paid to shape or contour. Although the industry was scattered throughout many communities, the two primary centers of Stogie production became Wheeling, West Virginia and Pittsburgh.
So you see, when some aspiring comedian comes up to me and says, “Hey bro, nice stogie!” what he’s really saying is, “Hey man, I see you’re a loser smoking the cheapest piece o’ crap cigar on the market!”
I shouldn’t have to take that.
I smoke to your health.