I’ve been clearing out old furniture prior to giving it a new home and I came across a couple of boxes of cigars. One’s unopened and is a box of Filipino cigars in a Christmas wrapper. The other is a Romeo y Julieta No 1 box with about a dozen of the original contents and a few more besides. What’s the story?
They date back to the mid to late 70s when I lived first in Jakarta (1974-76) and then in Hong Kong (1976-79).
In Jakarta I played for, in fact I captained, a soccer team which called itself ’The Masters’. We were a motley crew, mainly Brits and other Europeans, and played at the weekends at the International Sports Club of Indonesia of which several of us were members. We were the second team at the Club, the first team you might describe as ‘serious’. We were not. We played local teams and the fixtures secretary made sure these were ‘not strong’. We generally won, sometimes though we lost, but enjoyed the post-match Bintang.
One of our number, John Finnegan, was a stalwart at the Chartered Bank and enjoyed the finer aspects of life; John had discovered Filipino cigars. They were probably not in the same class as those from Cuba but they were an agreeable smoke, they were inexpensive and available locally. And at a time that smoking was not as negatively perceived as it is today it seemed perfectly reasonable for several of us to enjoy a cigar with our Bintang!
At the time of course I was working for Mobil Oil and that meant American colleagues who smoked cigars and because they were often travelling were able to buy the Cuban variety at duty free shops without breaking the bank. Dory Little was the boss at Mobil and smoked Monte Cristo and I remember buying a box for him in my attempts to get on his right side. I was partially successful. Google tells me he’s already died but given he was born in 1927 that’s hardly surprising.
I moved to Hong Kong in 1976 which was a big change. No more Masters football of course but lots more opportunities for nighttime entertainment and shops and kiosks selling anything you might need pretty much 24/7. And so it was that if I was heading out to dinner I would stop off at a kiosk selling a range of stuff from cold drinks through magazines to tobacco products where I could buy just one Monte Cristo for, I seem to remember, little more than ten Hong Kong dollars (that was about £1 in those days). Ridiculous really but it was the style of life we enjoyed in those days.
I can only recall smoking one cigar since leaving Hong Kong and that was during holiday in Cuba in 2009. I enjoyed it but despite buying a pack of five when we left. I have not felt any desire to smoke them. I guess it’s because we now live in a largely smoke free environment and the smoking tolerant society which we experienced back then is no more.
Back to the stash I’ve just uncovered. I’m told that cigars can last indefinitely if they’re kept in a humidor. If not it’s just a matter of weeks so I guess these are largely unsmokable. But given that it’s my birthday this week maybe I should give one a try.
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