Driving back from dropping off some gear in Michigan, nothing like a couple of cigars to bide the time.

Cigar smoking enjoyed an abrupt, and steep, spike in popularity during the 1990s, after years of decline. Cigar bars and shops sprang up even in midsize towns and cities, while profits experienced heady growth. But during all the years between the industry’s heyday and this 1990s revival, these fictional cigar smokers from stage, screen and literature never stopped puffing away.

James Bond

This tuxedo-clad, luxury-obsessed, cynical secret agent first appeared in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale, in which the young Bond, a recent addition to the “00″ (double-o) ranks of the British Secret Intelligence Service, proves his mettle by winning a high-stakes game of roulette against industrialist/rogue villain Hugo Drax. The success of this novel led to a long-running film series, television adaptations, many Fleming-penned sequels and - after Fleming’s death - various new sequels by such authors as John Gardner, Charlie Higson and even Kingsley Amis.

Perhaps his biggest mark has been made on the medium of film, where his adventures have been followed by millions who′ve never read the Fleming novels or their offspring. Sean Connery made the character an icon in such films as Dr. No (1962), Goldfinger (1964) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971), with his old-blooded suavity and crackling, slightly Scots-inflected accent (”I’ll play yer game, y’rogue”).

Bond has been played with great deftness and assurance by actors Timothy Dalton and Pierce Bronson as well, though Roger Moore, with his painted-on hair and flippant manner, kept the role the longest (from 1973′s Live and Let Die all the way to 1985′s A View To a Kill).

Most recently, Daniel Craig has injected the role with a new pathos and toughness, in 2006’s Casino Royale, perhaps the most critically-lauded Bond film yet. (But spare a thought for poor George Lazenby, who essayed the role in 1969’s From Her Majesty’s Secret Service - this writer’s personal favorite.)

Bond is a heavy smoker, and a discriminating one. He smokes both cigars and cigarettes, preferring a blend of Balkan and Turkish tobacco with a high tar content. (Recent Bond movies have curtailed this habit somewhat.)

Holden Caulfield

Like so many precocious adolescents, Holden Caulfield enjoys a good cigar - besides the taste, it’s a rite of passage for a soul that seems irretrievably trapped in transit. In J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye - for many readers, the great American novel of adolescence, though it had and continues to have its detractors - Holden runs away from his boarding school, Pencey Prep, condemning what he considers its “phoniness,” and spends a memorably disjointed weekend in New York City looking for something worth hanging his life onto.

He visits old friends, tries (and fails) to lose his virginity, drinks himself into semicoherence, and is hit on by one of his old teachers. Along the way, he treats readers to his reflections on the dishonesty, image-consciousness, and hypocrisy of adult society, sexual politics, and popular culture “I **** the movies!” while displaying, and rebuking himself for, some of these same traits. (”You′re always saying ‘Glad to’ve met you′ to people you′re not glad to’ve met at all.”) He washes away obscene graffiti written near the site of his old elementary school, and wishes that he could rescue his younger sister, Phoebe, from society’s various affronts to childhood innocence but, finally, he realizes that nobody can scrub all the dirt from life, and it’s foolish to try.

Perry White/J. Jonah Jameson

What would a superhero be without his secret identity - and without the cigar-chomping editor-in-chief who makes that secret identity’s life painful? Perry White, the larger-than-life editor of the Daily Planet, first appeared in the seventh issue of Superman (1940), and has bedeviled the existence of Clark Kent (that paper’s mild-mannered reporter) ever since. He is rarely pictured without his cigar. He is also a fan of Elvis.

J. Jonah Jameson, editor of the New York-based Daily Bugle, is just as crusty in his demeanor as Perry White, but, as the editor of a Rupert Murdoch-ish sensationalist tabloid, his sense of ethics don’t match those of his Daily Planet colleague. When Spider-Man begins his New York crimefighting career, Jameson wages a smear campaign against the hero - not knowing that one of his many underpaid freelance employees, photographer Peter Parker, is Spider-Man’s alter ego. But Jameson has a good side - as a young reporter he waged similarly tireless campaigns against organized crime and in support of civil rights.

I don′t like any cigarettes accept the Djarum Blacks, an I don′t really enjoy the gas station cigars, but I recently tried a $5 cigar and man it was so good. I liked it cause it lasted a long time, had a lot of flavor, good smell, and gave me a good buzz. I have figured out I am definately a cigar type person, definately not cigarette. I want to try pipe tobacco and was wondering what a good first choice would be, I don′t want anything to mild.

People are irresistibly drawn to their own culminated habits and even thousands of cautions can hardly restrain them from their bad habits. Smoking is such a devastating habit and the online cigar bonanza has ignited it even further. Perhaps the world has been witnessing a peculiar unequal battle between the consciousness and unconsciousness, virtue and evil, spirit and moroseness, morality and immorality. On one hand it’s the unending fight of the auspicious forces against the disastrous smoking and on the other, it’s the monolithic dogmatism of some cigar lovers. The time has not yet come for the final verdict as any drastic change needs sustainable amount of time and even bloodshed can not be ruled out.

If you ask the smoker about the reasons, you will receive very peculiar reasons. It’s the bridge between two unknown individuals, the starter of friendship or the initiator of creativity. Cigars are the best pastime activities as loneliness at times raises boredom and the meanders of smoke help them to reach the Disney lands. Prohibition in smoking dismays the alcohol addicts as they feel that drinking losses its luster without the presence of a cigar. What we can realize that cigars, like most other drugs, can generate a sudden boost by intoxicating the nerves and the effect goes away automatically with the course of time. The problem is that its far reaching tentacles of cigars can bring a formidable devastation in one’s life and reduce the life span drastically. The cigars not only affect the smoker, but it builds up a huge number of passive smokers and the entire vicinity becomes polluted.

Cigars have been forbidden in many places by stipulations formed at various governmental and social levels, but rights to freedom can’t annihilate the smoking by force. People can smoke at their own drawing room in front of the television or in their own bedroom, even ignoring the alarms of spouse.

When the people are asked to quit smoking, they start feeling alien and restless without having a puff at the schedule time. There are people, who attempts to bid adieu to their dangerous habit, but even their valiant efforts fail to cut the ice, at times. It’s really difficult to show resilience to the prolonged habit, but it is the human being, who can even exhibit the guts of mountaineering in Himalayas. We feel, a continuous effort with an optimal support from the dear and near once can help them to get rid of their inculcated habits. Some people believe in jolts, who try to leave the cigar by throwing the packet to the dustbin and there are some, who prefer to reduce cigars through a planned approach before they arrive at their objective of non-smoking. In either case, one has to be courageous enough to overcome the inner battle, as every smoker starts smoking after his tacit approval only.

Every new thing in the world has got some potentially negative effects, against which the human resilience pops up automatically. If one needs to put an end to his Cigar sojourn, he may need a fierce thunder to stir himself from inside.

I would like to buy a couple of the green label Partagus Limited Reserve cigars online . . anyone know where I can buy less than a full box? Thanks!

Showing the cigars I bought, barefoot

A look at how Garo cigars are made in the heart of the Dominican Republic

Nothing too expensive, just trying to broaden my horizons. Up until now, I’ve mostly smoked ACID cigars, but I know most people will tell me those aren’t “real” cigars.

Tobacco beetles can not only eat your cigars down to dust, they can cost you a pretty penny. While not a new pest for cigar lovers, it is the leading insect that threatens stored tobacco. These critters do not discriminate. They will attack tobacco at any stage of manufacturing, up to retail and travel to your humidor.

Though it is the most common, the tobacco beetle is not the only predator that preys on tobacco. Several other insects such as the tobacco moth, the tobacco worm and at least 12 other species of insects feed on the plant. Many of these insects were trapped either in tobacco factories, warehouses or found on cigars left in room temperature inside homes.

The tobacco beetle, which is larger than the cigarette beetle, is mainly a tropical species. It is identical to the cigarette beetle except that it is larger and is black instead of brown. The tobacco beetle attacks cured tobacco in much the same way as the cigarette beetle. The tobacco moth is sometimes a serious pest of flue-cured tobacco on the farm, farmers say. Infestation may begin even in the curing barn and continue until the tobacco is marketed. Most damage occurs in the pack-house, where the tobacco is bulked before being graded. Infestation may develop from moths flying from commercial storages or farms nearby, or it may be already established on the farm and carried over from year to year in scrap tobacco, peas or beans, stock feeds or other host foods. Tobacco dealers and manufacturers constantly practice insect-control measures and maintains damage-free on insect infestations.

Having a humidor is not a guarantee as friend from Davie found out. Despite stashing away his stogies in his safe haven, he returned and found his Cubans with holes like a strainer. That’s because the illegal cigars were not properly cured and the insects were not destroyed before the cigars were put away, allowing them to multiply. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. He lost hundreds of dollars on the coveted cigars “ For a while I thought someone had opened the humidor or I thought someone had sold me a dud.” But a friend explained to him that Cuban cigars are the most prone to developing beetles because they don’t fumigate their tobacco. The don’t take the same preventive measures as the other countries do. But if you do have Cuban Cigars beware!

Below are steps to eradicate tobacco bugs in your humidor and how to prevent them from returning.:

1. First, double bag all the cigars that were in the humidor with the contaminated cigars, even those which don’t have holes. They probably have eggs and larvae. You can also use tupperware containers. One inside the other (Because of the extra moisture produced by the freezing, the extra bag or container will act as a deterrent for the moisture the freezing might produce). In a regular frost free freezer the temperature should be 10 F. to 15 F. above Zero. If in a deep freezer the temperature should be -10 F. Keep the cigars in the regular freezer for 30 days and in the deep freezer for 15 days.

2. While the cigars are in the freezer, clean your humidor with a vacuum. Leave it empty and open for at least a week. The bugs will die without its food source, the tobacco.

3. When it is time to remove the cigars from the freezer, transfer them to the refrigerator for 24 hours. Then let your cigars reach room temperature as they sit outside for another day. Return your cigars to your humidor and humidify them again. Be patient, don’t try to speed up this process.

4. When ever you come across Cuban cigars freeze them immediately, following the steps above. Better safe than sorry.

Long ashes everyone.

Part 1 - Visit WWW.CIGARKING.COM for information on any CAO cigars