Cohíba Lancero 2000

Measures: 190 mm x 14 mm

Age: The cigar dates from year 2000 and came from a cardboard box of five.

Setting: Midsummer is quite literally a magical time in Finland. There is hardly any darkness: the sunset in Helsinki is around 11 PM and sunrise at 3:50 AM. The time between is a blend of evening and morning dusk, and on a clear night it is quite possible to, say, read through the night. (Reading, nevertheless, is not the first choice for spending the Midsummer eve night for most Finns.) Following ancient (and probably pagan) customs, the Midsummer eve is a time for celebration involving the lighting of bonfires and a bit of white magic: unmarried girls gather a bouquet of seven flowers during the night, and if they place it under their pillow, they can dream of their future fiancé. If they manage to get any sleep at all, that is: it is not uncommon for young people to celebrate through the entire night.

I too attended a bonfire party with my family. Of course, I was prepared to light a small fire myself. The occasion called for a special cigar, so I pulled a Cohíba Lanceros from my humidor where they had spent a few months in rest, waiting for a special occasion such as this.

The Lanceros is a cigar of almost mythical fame: the original Laguito product that once was only available to dignitaries as a gift from the Cuban government. Thus my expectations were high. Judging from the external appearance, this cigar reached even the highest requirements of what a flagship Habanos should be. It was clad in perfect colorado wrapper, and rolled with perfect workmanship. Year 2000 is supposed to be a less preferred vintage for Cuban cigars, so I was a bit concerned when I originally shopped for the cigar. The vendor nevertheless assured that these cigars are of highest quality, and that indeed proved to be the case: after cutting the signature pigtail cap, the draw (which had been my main concern) turned out to be ideally resistive.

I timed lighting the cigar in sync with the lighting of the bonfire. My bonfire started rather more eagerly. From the first pulls, I received a rich Cohíba flavour that reminded me of espresso with a dose of cream. The flavour was strong from the very start, with an aftertaste that seemed to last forever, and only became stronger as I continued smoking in bliss. Somewhere along the session, sweet spiciness entered the profile, always in perfect balance with the very wholesome creamy flavour. Although I was smoking outdoors in windy conditions, watching the bonfire, the sea, and the setting sun, the cigar burned perfectly, never requiring any further interventions from my part during the entire smoking session that lasted some 100 minutes.

My choice of a special cigar for a special moment turned out to be perfect. I found that the Lancero can live up to the high mythos that surrounds it. The experience of smoking it blended perfectly with the experience of witnessing the bonfire, the slowly setting sun, and the merry company of fellow Finns celebrating the apex of the long-awaited Summer that will so soon be past.

Montecristo Especial No. 1 1997

Measures: 189 mm x 14,5 mm
Age: The cigar came from a wonderful selection of fine smokes I received from a fellow cigar smoker. It dates from 1997.
Setting: Today was my 51st birthday, although I somehow prefer to think of it as the third time I become 17. Other than that, 51 is not a special number, so the celebrations were quite modest: nice lunch followed by birthday cake with the closest family. A good cigar felt nevertheless a proper complement on top of this. This time I did not have to search long for the suitable choice: I had recently received aged Montecristo Especials from a fellow smoker as part of a selection of fine cigars, and by this time they had had a good rest for recovering from the long voyage.

Suggestions from more experienced smokers have lately turned my attention to the classical long thin cigars, of which the Montecristo Especial is a fine example. The Laguito No 1 format is indeed impressive, without being intimidating. It is substantial, but with a playful twist. This cigar was clad in very beautiful colorado wrapper that still felt oily after the many years of storage. It was uniformly covered with white dust particles that reflected the afternoon sunshine. Overall, the construction of the cigar appeared to just as perfect as one might hope. I cut the cigar, and tried the draw which proved to be perfectly resistive, confirming that this cigar indeed had been stored in perfect conditions. The cold aroma was slightly salty, with exotic spices over earthy tobacco.

The cigar lit easily and eagerly: a benefit of the small ring size. I was greeted with a substantial earthy aroma with hints of coffee and cacao, even chocolate. There was a good dose of spice too that tingled my palate: for once I was thinking of wasabi, intermittently also citrus. At later stages, the richness and intensity of the flavour increased gradually. While the cigar clearly had Montecristo profile, it still was a unique expression of it in its balance of mature tobacco and sweetish elements. The cigar produced very light grey ash with yellowish shade; it held quite firm in 1-inch increments. The burn of the cigar was perfect, never requiring any attention from my part. The smoking session lasted some 90 minutes.

All in all, this is indeed a special cigar, as the vitola name suggests. In my mind, the experience of smoking it was like admiring a classical piece of art: the mastery of expression, the balance of elements, the strong personality. This is perhaps a cigar that should be smoked in the top floor of a high-rise building, wearing a tuxedo, watching the city lights, thinking of the passage of time and the ups and downs of life.

My First Love

During a recent trip to Beijing, I bought myself a violin.

This was a planned thing. I knew exactly where to go: to a shop located in the third floor of a building on the Wangfujing Street, seemingly only containing a sports equipment store. I had bought one violin there before, an instrument that I had sold away to somebody who seemed to need it more than myself.

This time, the master violin-builder was not himself there. When I bought the previous instrument, he helped me the make the choice. Although he had no English, and I have no Chinese, we understood each other very well. This time, however, I was helped with his assistant, who also contributes to building the instruments.

My prime interest was to find an instrument that feels (relatively) easy to play. I spent a couple of hours browsing through the various instruments, until I finally decided on one of the first that had been offered to me. I ended up spending a bit more on it than what I had planned, so I went back to my hotel with somewhat mixed feelings. Do I really need another violin?

Violin was my first instrument that I picked up at the age of 7. In my early teens, I was (relatively) serious about it, until I realised that several of my friends were more talented, more committed, or both. I switched to playing viola, and downscaled my music-related objectives to a more realistic level.

This worked out very well: I ended up playing a lot on amateur level, especially chamber music. I like the viola, and the instrument has served me very well. I also started the play the piano, and deloped another kind of a passion to it. But violin was my first love, a love that eventually failed to bloom. Thus it was with mixed feelings that I started to explore the new instrument, initially playing this and that, various pieces of music that I had learned at some time.

What led me to play Bach again, I don't know. For sure, I had played some parts of the Partita in D minor already in my teens, but I had never dared to attack seriously the monumental Chaconne that forms the final movement of the Partita. It felt too formidable, too wide in scope and expression, and technically too difficult to make it sound right.

Be it as it may, I am playing the Chaconne now. I am not making a good job on it yet, but I am making progress, and I think I have a found an angle of attack to it that might work. It's a steep climb, but I think I can make it, if not to the top, then surely higher from where I am now.

Frankly, I had forgotten just how intensive playing the violin seriously is both mentally and physically. That my fingers and my back are hurting is just a trivial part of it. It's the intensity of concentration, the strain of pointing one's mind totally to the music, the keen alertness demanded by the composition that I had forgotten. They are both painful and seducing.

So, in my advanced years, I have found a link to my first love, the sweetness and bitterness of it. But I am also making a proposition that I did not have the courage to make back then. Will this (hopefully) more mature and realistic passion be rewarded its price?