BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN
Every now and again, an event prompts me to smoke one of my remaining, hand-rolled Peñamil Oro cigars. I refrain from reaching for one – the occasion must be especially special as I have so few of these cigars left. I bought them as a gift for my late father. Smoking them, I reserve, in my own way, as both a means of thanking the Almighty, and loving in the presence of predecessors.
Perhaps the puffing ritual is something that over the years I’ve caught from the Red Indian blood in my wife, although she’s more French than Pocahontas. Sadly, these days I find more depth of rite – and praise – in the puffing of a fat cigar before God than in the sharing of any ritual in cathedrals of hypocritical Holy Willies. (A sermon-free Latin Mass at a niche monastery I stumbled upon while on a dog walk is perhaps the only notable recent exception, not that I understood much of it).
Such colossal cigars give one time to think, to sharpen one’s mind’s eye, illuminating parts that one’s daily radar failed to clock, or became distracted from ever registering
Last Wednesday I sat outside under a pear tree in the walled garden with a big mug of espresso and a cigar. The postman had come by with a pen drive that morning which I was not expecting to ever receive. (Thank You to the saint who sent it. We are more grateful than you know).
With the September sun shining and rich honey-vanilla hydrangea fusing with the scent of pears in our noses, I was alone, save my loyal pals – Angus the terrierist and Buster, our aged lab. As I fluttered between sip and puff, I drifted up to that place of luminescence which levitating Yogis mistakenly claim monopoly over … Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus, pro universis beneficiis tuis, qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum …
For a while I resided in the haven of Santa Cruz de Tenerife where the tabacos de Peñamil were introduced to me by the late José Bastarricca, a then elderly architect who’d borrow my old MGB GT to visit his mistresses. José and I would sit in the tasca near my office on Calle Obispo Rey Redondo in La Laguna, late into siesta time, smoking them over a cognac after a steak avocado lunch. José would be ranting and raving as usual about John Palmer, the Brink’s-Mat crook – long since assassinated – who back then ran great chunks of the south of the island, as if I as an Englishman on José’s island could somehow rid his soil of such oiks from England. My mind would be elsewhere as the minds of most twenty-four-year-olds would tend to drift in such a paradisiacal place full of beaches and bellas, intoxicated as it was by the cognac and cigars. I recall us remarking on the wonders of the Peñamil Oro as he planned his next whizz up the volcano in flagrante, or jabbered about a cockfight or bananas.
They say a stopped clock is correct twice a day. Cuba’s Communists produce tobacco that gives you much better aromas and flavours than Dominican or other tobaccos, just as their rum is truly world-conquering. Sensibly, cigar, cigarillo and cigarette producers on the Canarian archipelago have always used tobacco from two of Cuba’s prominent growing areas, the Vuelta Abajo and Remedios. It is by far the best. It makes your mind spin and fills you with inspiration. Despite the political restrictions that forbid exporters from selling to Americans, the advantage of using Cuban tobacco in a cigar blend is worth the hassle. Cuban leaf adds strength and spice to a blend that other tobaccos cannot reproduce. Dare inhale and you’ll find yourself in extreme humidity, standing next to the Guama River gasping for the cool air coming off the Sierra de Los Oraganos mountains.
Back in England, to the sound of Labrador snoring and buzzing bees, I could eventually open my eyes after what seemed like hours, having witnessed the world in glorious light.
Such circumspection, if it could be bottled, could make G4S competent. Hedgies and nudgers should sign contracts with the likes of Peñamil.
It is said that tobacco is the plant that converts thoughts into dreams. I prefer to think it converts thoughts into strategies. Either which way, it is far cheaper than mere therapist, will never drift erroneously into wokeness or socialism as modern day priests tend to, and it’s kryptonite against irritating levellers and all other mosquitoes.
¡Viva el cigarro!
Dominic Wightman is Editor of Country Squire Magazine.