First Cigar
It has been a month of firsts. But Saturday night ranked up there as the best of the best. It was my birthday. And, it was the first night my wife and I stayed in our new home in Querétaro, Mexico. It has been a three-year odyssey, with a lot of twists and turns, but it all came together on October 25, 2014.
Needless to say, such a momentous occasion deserved a cigar worthy of the moment. I'll be frank—Saturday night I was so tired I nearly fell asleep in my food at the small nearby Italian bistro where we had dinner. That evening passed without the cigar. But after another long day of unpacking on Sunday, I was ready to treat myself.
Smoking the first cigar in my new home couldn't be done without the proper adult beverage accompaniment. I hadn't forgotten. During the long day of hitting Costco and Home Depot (yes, they have huge ones here in Querétaro) and a gigantic grocery store, I stumbled on a bottle of 7-year-old Flor de Caña, which given my journalistic roots in Nicaragua back in 1978, seemed to offer symmetry, as well as it being one of my favorite rums.
At 6:45 pm on Sunday, I found my wife and asked her what she wanted to drink. I prepared her a rum and tonic, splashed with fresh squeezed orange juice from the tree in our back patio (Do I hear house cocktail?), and I poured myself a generous portion of Flor de Caña over ice.
The sun had just set, leaving a broad swatch of orange and pink in the sky over the rooftops of the city, and a crescent moon was sliding toward the western horizon. Jet contrails slashed across the darkening sky.
The cigar? I had a 2008 Partagás Lusitania given to me by a friend here in Mexico. The wrapper was a shiny reddish brown; a classic Colorado color. The burn was perfect and the draw had just enough effort to keep the ash even. The flavor reminded me of great Lusitanias I've had in the past; deep coffee notes with a hint of a sweet spice like cinnamon. On the finish, there was that telltale note of Cuban ligero, a little punch to the taste that lingers on the palate. In other words, it was a near-perfect cigar for a near-perfect moment.
My wife and I sat on the upstairs deck, watching the lights of the city come on, illuminating the domes of half a dozen churches we can see and silhouetting the 40-foot high statue of Benito Juarez on the Cerro de las Campanas at the edge of the city's Centro Historico. The wind began to pick up, and the temperature started dropping, as the moon dropped lower in the sky. It was time to go in. But it was a perfect first cigar.
