Cigarscapes E-Book

Philippe Mesmer

• Herausgeber: Parkstone International
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 25

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

For generations now, it has been possible to separate cigar-lovers into two major categories: those who prefer Havanas, and those who don't. It is a difference that can be as crucial to those involved as, say, the difference between full-bodied red wine and sweet white. Certainly, to anyone who enjoys proper tobacco, lighting up a Havana cigar is the first step towards utter hedonism. With wit and skill, Philippe Mesmer makes a forthrightly chauvinistic comparison between the attractions of women, of spiritous liquors and of the Havana cigar. Plentiful illustrations include old and rare scenic cigar-bands, some with images of the island of Cuba. You might well say that this is a book seeking to find the path to those forms of Paradise that last no longer than an excellent cigar.

Leseprobe

Cigarscapes

For the refined pleasure of cigar-lovers

Publishing Director:Jean-Paul Manzo

Text: Philippe Mesmer

Translation from French: Mike Darton

Design and layout:Cédric Pontes

Cover and jacket:Cédric Pontes

We would like to extend special thanks to Mike Darton for his invaluable cooperation

We are very grateful to the Cuban Tourist Office in Paris.

Photograph credits:

© Cuban Tourist Office in Paris

© 2024, Confidential Concepts, Worldwide, USA

© 2024, Parkstone Press USA, New York

©Image-Barwww.image-bar.com

All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world.

Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research, it has not always beenpossible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification.

ISBN: 978-1-63919-892-4

Contents

Introduction

Beauty in the eye of the beholder

Pleasure for the eyes

The Scent of Legends

The deft touch

Tactile pleasures

Making the cut

A touch of flame

A matter of taste

Going solo

Combined tastes

Epilogue

List of Illustrations

Introduction

‘A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is something rather special’Rudyard Kipling didn’t quite say that – for all that he was an excellent writer – but he was very much a man’s man. And for such a red-blooded male, women and cigars both belong to the heady domain of personal pleasure. A pleasure that is both noble and elegant gratifies the senses with its delicacy and refinement. The mere mention of the word ‘cigar’ may be enough to evoke a whole panorama of mental images and arouse the Epicurean that otherwise lies dormant in all Havana-cigar-smokers.

Such mental images all have a feminine counterpart. The colour of the cigar comes first. It may be comparable to a smile, a look, even the view of a body comfortable in the knowledge of its own beauty and incontestable charm. It may hold the promise of the exotic, the racy, the warmly smiling.

Then there is the smell which, in its turn, assails the nostrils of the willing victim. Just as a perfume has its own characteristic fragrance, the smell of a cigar is indissolubly linked with its colour. It may be strong and pungent, or it may be discreet and even weak. And it comes from the Caribbean where, perhaps – just perhaps – the women who make the cigars practise the strange custom of rolling them on their thighs ...

Such seductive qualities conspiring together so shamelessly nonetheless eventually lead the smoker to the stage of testing the cigar by touch. From tip to toe he caresses the body of the cigar, much in the way he might stroke the smooth skin of a woman. He enjoys the sensation, savouring the promises it seems to make him – and to which he will undoubtedly hold it, for a cigar cannot be unfaithful.