While I’ve written books (about 20, but who’s counting, other than my mother) on numerous topics including fine mechanical timepieces, luxury hotels, automobiles and spirits, I’m perhaps known best for my books on cigars, which makes sense—they’ve been a constant companion since my university days.
Which partly explains why I’m releasing my fifth book on the subject, which is also my most personal volume to date: CIGARS: A Biography.
It’s a coffee-table tome that’s part history book, part travelogue, part photographic monograph and part luxury reference work. It all adds up to a comprehensive survey of cigars that lightly weaves into the narrative tapestry anecdotes from my more than 35 years as a cigar enthusiast—travels that have taken me to cigar factories and festivals, tobacco farms, cigar merchants and lounges around the world.
And while Biography in the title refers to cigars themselves, not to me, I did sprinkle in some autobiographical elements throughout. Why not? After all, I’ve had the privilege of unfettered access to true cigarmaking masters such as Carlito Fuente Jr., Litto Gomez, Henke Kelner, Manolo Quesada and Benji Menéndez; legendary tobacco growers including Don Alejandro Robaina, Jon Foster and the Plasencia and Oliva families; cigar merchants such as Edward Sahakian and Desmond Sautter; and cigarmakers of my own generation such as Pete Johnson, Jonathan Drew and Nestor Andrés Plasencia. The humbling fact is I’m always learning. Nonetheless, after four decades in and around the cigar world as a retailer, writer and creative director, I also have a tale or two to tell and many thoughts to share.
The limited first edition (2,500 copies worldwide) also marks my fourth publishing collaboration with Los Angeles–based photographer Ian Spanier, who has often accompanied me on these adventures. Ian shot this volume on location in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Los Angeles and up and down the eastern seaboard of the U.S.—from Miami and Tampa to New York City and Windsor, Connecticut, as well as locations in Europe and Australia.
CIGARS: A Biography is also partially an anthology, featuring previously published articles and book excerpts that I’ve thoroughly updated, as well as previously unpublished images that Ian has shot over the last decade and a half, which are blended seamlessly with new photographs he took exclusively for the book over the past two years. It includes a foreword by Tom Chamberlin, ardent cigar enthusiast and editor in chief of The Rake, the world’s leading publication on classic men’s style and good living.
What sets this book apart from my others is simple: It’s the one Ian and I have long envisioned, our first without others’ involvement or influence. This is a passion project in every sense of the term. As Cyril Connolly, the famed English literary critic, once said, “Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.” I wrote this book, and Ian shot it, for ourselves, with the hope, of course, that it will find an audience. That audience is other cigar connoisseurs. We hope they (and you) agree.
The hand-bound illustrated volume, designed by award-winning creative director Liliana Guia, is presented in a handcrafted cigar case–inspired slipcase. It’s a must-have for any cigar aficionado. Bibliophiles and gift givers welcome too.
