Tobacco the Past

Your grandfather, if he smoked a pipe, almost certainly had a companion tinderbox made of cedar or pine, filled with smoking bric-a-brac – fuzzy cleaners that could be bent into animal shapes, bagged pipe tobacco, a spare stem or two. The box had that scent of wood infused with old tobacco, and one whiff could bring back childhood memories precious enough to make Norman Rockwell weep. If that’s your thing, Tom Ford has your time machine ready — his new scent, Tobacco Vanille, brags that it’s “a modern take on an old world men’s club,” with essences of tobacco leaf and spices, and hints of “creamy tonka bean, tobacco flower, vanilla and cocoa, and…dry fruit accord enriched with sweet wood sap.” To us, though, it smells like December afternoons in pappy’s workshop circa 1978. Tomford.com
1.75 oz. bottle/$165
8.3 oz. bottle/$450

“What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar,” opined U.S. vice president Thomas Riley Marshall in 1917, while his boss focused on the mundane like ending the war to end all wars. In other words, a quality stick in the financial reach of just about anyone, whether CEO or stevedore.

These days, poor Marshall must be spinning in his grave: Congress has been trying to push through a bill that could raise the cost of cigars up to $10 per cigar, threatening to put most sticks — quality or not — out of the reach of anyone not planning to light them with rolled up dollar bills. Cigar makers have been up in arms — and one of them has decided to do something about it.

“We couldn’t come out with just another cigar; we wanted to come out with something for the industry,” says Andy O’Dower, marketing manager for Xikar, traditionally a maker of cigar cutters, travel humidors and other accessories. Some five percent of all wholesale sales for the company’s new Defiance line will be donated to state coalitions fighting what they term “over-taxation.” Ol’ Marshall would have been proud. XIKAR.COM

The Renegade (5 X 50) / $130/box of 20
The Sentry (6 X 46) / $135/box of 20
The Guardian (6½ X 52) / $140/box of 20
The Instigator (6 X 54) / $155/box of 20

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
It might not be the Boston Tea Party, but one company has found a way to protest the looming cigar levy.