Views from a Smoke-Filled Room

LOS ANGELES – When someone says "Stars and Stripes" you might be thinking about the American flag.

If you’re a cigar nut, you might remember how striped cigars became stars ...

It happened during the Cigar Boom, of course. Hugo Cassar, the head of Kretek International, and his associate Steve Hersch were in the Dominican Republic working on the launch of a series of Hugo Cassar cigars. During a visit to the factory, one of the rollers demonstrated the technique of producing a dual-wrapped cigar that looked like a barber pole or a candy cane!

It intrigued both Cassar and Hersch and after some discussion, Kretek became the first to produce a dual-wrapped cigar called the Hugo Cassar Diamond Dominican Mystique. The year was 1996, and the Mystique was offered in five shapes with a Honduran-made version available by year’s end in four shapes.

The original Dominican-made blend utilized a light-colored Connecticut Shade leaf intertwined with a very dark brown Dominican brewleaf wrapper to form the striped effect. Although never a large seller, it did attract considerable attention, and those who saw these cigars didn’t soon forget them.

But while Cassar and Hersch were the first to place the striped cigar in circulation on the American market, they weren’t the last. And even wilder styles were yet to come.

In 2004, boutique cigar maker Philip Wynne decided two wrappers weren’t enough. He bought out a series called "Capas" in two sizes which featured a conventional striped cigar with Connecticut and Indonesian wrappers in light and dark brown. That was the "Dos Capas." Then he added a third leaf to the mix of Nicaraguan candela leaf for a green stripe and called it his "Tres Capas" line. Also a novelty, it’s been sufficiently popular that he is also making it for Mike’s Cigars, a large Florida-based national retailer, under the name "898 Collection Tricolor."

Not wanting to be left behind, however, the first four-striped cigar has been created. This time it’s Rocky Patel who constructed the wildest striper yet. The line is called the Indian Tabac Split Decision and is made in one size, a 6-inch by 52-ring toro that’s distributed by Pennsylvania retailer Cigars International.

Made in Honduras, the blend includes Dominican and Nicaraguan interior leaves, but then is produced in three different styles: Double Toro, with a Connecticut and Habano wrapper; Triple Toro, with Connecticut, Habano and Maduro and the Quad Toro, adding a Candela leaf to the cigar for a truly dizzying smoking experience.

Are these serious cigars? Not really, and there are other novelties out there for the collector or for someone who want something unusual. But they’ve given a whole new meaning to the phrase "earning your stripes" when talking to a cigar smoker!

(Rich Perelman is editor-in-chief of CigarCyclopedia.com, offering comprehensive daily coverage of cigars, accessories, issues, people and prices at www.CigarCyclopedia.com.)

Rich Perelman

3/31/08

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