I hate Thanksgiving.
Does that make me a bad American? Nope.
It makes me an employee of the company that puts on a large go-kart race every Thanksgiving. Every year I give up ten days of my life to create webcasts that emanate from the event. I spend a week in a motel room that scores a 1.5 out of 5 stars. I am generally in a foul mood for a month prior to the show, up until that moment after the last race is over and all the cables and equipment, covered in filth, are all cleaned, the gear is all packed up, and I arrive home at 2 am Sunday morning. But with the exception of two 18 hour days at the end of the week, I get to spend some late evenings in front of my motel room in a chair with a paper cup of whiskey and ice and a fine cigar. On the first of 3-4 such evenings, I selected a 2005 Partagas Serie D No.4. This one was remarkable for the fact that it was the first of this vintage that I have smoked yet that was not smoked with tape over the damaged heads. I had 4 boxes of ten and I emptied all the boxes into an old cabinet of fifty robustos... Among the 40 sticks, there were 3-4 that had severe damage to the head. I find some packing tape works pretty well in fixing the damage , cures the bad draw and saves the smoke, which I am all for. And now those damaged sticks are all officially smoked.
Down to the good stuff.
I proudly lit the cigar and kicked back enjoying the perfect draw and superb flavor. Man what a smoke. These are notorious for their erratic performance in terms of flavor. If you do not know the 'secret' to their proper smoking time, you end up complaining about them. If you DO know the ancient chinese secret, you smoke new boxes up fast or put em down for 3-4 years. Or so goes the lore, passed down from viking times.
This cigar went so well with the Wild Turkey Rare Bird that I hardly noticed the bitter cold. (For the record, that bottle of Basil Hayden's in the back was NOT killed at the motel. That one has been around all year, til I finished it earlier in the week.) I smoked the PSD4 up too fast, but enjoyed it well enough. I tasted licorice, coffee, mint, cream, pine, spice and leathery goodness. The draw was perfect and the burn was straight too. All in all, one of the rare moments of joy in a week I dread every year.
I have smoked a lot of Montecristo Petit Edmundos, and had now a total of two good ones. One of those happened today. On a cigar website, I had suggested to a person who wanted to cook a shoulder in a crock pot that it might be better to smoke a cigar and have a beer outside while the shoulder was smoking in a traditional smoker. I can't think of a better way to spend a meat-monitoring session than with a fine havana cigar. Now the weather is different for everyone, and this person was expecting some cold rain, so who am I to tell him where to smoke his meat?
Here where I live, it was going to be COOL with rain moving in at any time. And since this blog has languished for over a month without a new entry, I decided I needed to take my own advice and sit outside this morning and smoke a cigar. I clipped a Petit Edmundo that was sitting in a humidor designed to dry cigars out prior to smoking, and spending much more time in that box was going to ruin it. So I poured a pint of Abita 25th Anniversary Ale and ambled on downstairs. One of the best things about the morning up to that point had been at the new placement of my bird feeder. I'd cut down a small dead tree last year and was about to cut it up into small pieces for burning when I realized it might be best to just dig a post hole and plant the old dead tree in a different spot as a wait station for birds who like to drink off of the waterfalls in my pond. Many birds use my pond and it's water features for a morning or evening bath, and it can get crowded at times. What's more, the birds like to act like they are not waiting. They are just chilling out. So having a few nice perches around act as both a spot to wait and a spot to scope the area for predators prior to putting themselves in a dangerous but necessary position. I hung a bird feeder from one of the limbs and the black sunflower seed in it appeals especially to Nuthatches and Titmouses and Chickadees. What falls below is a treat for the Cardinals. These birds are pretty entertaining and really pleasant critters to watch. They are all pretty tolerant of me being out there, and this morning, they gently scold me when I go too close to the feeder until they realize I am peeling a pecan to break up and put in the feeder tray. They really love that and their scolding turns into an excited chatter.
So once I get the cigar lit it dawns on me quickly that I am enjoying the smoke a LOT. It started with a lot of Montecristo cocoa and spice, and headed into a very mineral twang of cuban soil. The burn was as slow as a coming Christmas for a 5 year old, and it was a real sight at the foot of the cigar. It was ragged and ugly but it was a joy to smoke the cigar and have it last so long. The flavor kept on going and going, and the pleasure was notable, after not smoking for so long. I watched the birds come and go, choosing their sunflower seed or pecan pieces, and puffed away happily, watching the blue smoke from both the foot of the cigar and the chimney of my smoker. Once the Boston butt was done, I thought, 'ehh, what the heck, solid days of rain are coming, it's already wet from a morning rain and the smoker is still going', so I went upstairs and split a whole fryer and rubbed it well and smoked that, too. I fed the smoked giblets to Ralph, who really appreciated it, especially the liver. As he was gobbling it down, I realized I should PROBABLY be eating that instead. What careth he if its a gizzard, a heart, a neck or a liver? And there were TWO livers in this bird's cavity. And I STILL let him have it. Not thinking straight from smoking my killer little cigar.
I love a good Petit Edmundo. All two times I have had one. Wait, MAYBE I have had THREE. I seem to recall writing this same schpiel in another post a while back. Still has about the same impact. To have smoked maybe 20 and had 3 good ones? That makes an impression that is hard to drop. But when I get a good one, and enjoy a cool and damp morning among my little furred and feathered friends, it makes it a day worth living even more than usual.
