Re: great cigars are toscan.


"Mark Reinhold" <markr@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote
So everybody is saying he didn't like the cigars? I thought
Vanderslice gave me one at hard and I smoked around lake tahoe back at
HARD 2 or 3 or 4. It had a strange taste, but then I was drinking
back then, so who knows?


It sounds a lot like a Burmese cheroot. David Farmer once got a couple of
boxes of these (probably at a really good price) and shared them. They may
be the dog rockets to which all others should be compared.

There is an article online that describes them:

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=1041

Some salient quotes:

Ingredients include "tha-nat leaves, dried and flattened, bits of dried soft
wood seasoned with tamarind pulp, crushed tobacco leaves, dry corn husks cut
to make filters, and a skein of silk or cotton thread, a leftover from the
family loom".

They are rolled only by women, who often use them as a gift for a suitor: "A
gift of cheroot rolled by the lady's fair hands meant to the courting swain
that he had a good chance to win her. Cheroots in love songs There is a love
song, well known even to this day, that tells of the gift of the cheroot
from a maid to her lover, who had gone to the golden city of Inwa. The girl
said she did not buy the tha-nat leaf from the markets, but plucked it green
and fresh from the tree. She put the leaf under her bed, partly because she
could not face others asking "for whom" and partly because she would rather
let it dry by the warmth of her young body than by the heat of the sun or
fire."

Thankfully, they are not for sale at any American retailer that I know of.


Michael
New Orleans, Louisiana USA fermanis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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