The past couple weeks I spent my time in Dallas with Devyn. While most of the time was spent indoors, with the occasional trip for groceries, just before I was carted back up to Wichita we were able to make a special trip out to Cigars International brick and mortar shop. We stopped to get him a cigar, a Sweet Jane Box press, and myself one to try, a Java Latte. While we had every intention to smoke them our main goal was the ash; we had pictures to take.

Our main adventure for the night was trying to get pictures for the cigar book he is working on, all of which we needed cigar ash for. A sub adventure for that evening was having me practice preparing a cigar.

Now keep in mind, I have only ever truly prepared a cigar once on my own with a cheap guillotine cutter that was unnecessarily large.

So I decided to start with the Sweet Jane, which I was unaware the apparent difficulty that came with cutting a box press. I was uncertain of my ability to get a good straight cut with my fancy new cigar scissors so I opted to borrow Devyns Punch. He instructed me on how to line it up in the center, casually smoking a cigarette while I’m breaking out in a cold sweat. I was so nervous about messing up the cigar I had a hard time getting the punch to even go in!
After a few minutes of struggling and getting not much, he took the punch and showed me how to fix it. He then walked me through using a draw tool, in which I nervously stabbed the cigar multiple times. The draw tool I had bought, while cool looking, was not getting the job done so he used his to see if he could get it any better.

Then came toasting.
I had never toasted a cigar before.
Let’s just say I need to work on my gag reflex.

The lighting was almost if not more nerve wracking than try to punch the damn thing. I had the torch I had purchased running so long I actually burnt my hand and had to borrow one of Devyns (this is a running theme if you haven’t noticed yet). He had to coach me through getting it evenly lit but this time I think I did okay.

We got the ash we needed for one of the pictures then called it a night. While I was sad I couldn’t smoke the one I had bought, I was also slightly relieved to have the embarrassing and nerve wracking experience over. I definitely didn’t remember most of the information I had read and looked up. I mean I’ve been helping with the cigar book and everything!

Despite this I did enjoy the experience and it was worth while. I learned that I definitely need to practice more, worry less about being perfect the first time, that I’m 90% certain I hate punching cigars, and that Devyn is probably going to have me punch all his cigars.

In love and leather,
Magic