For Women Only

WHY, WHEN AND WHERE WE WOMEN SMOKE

CigarShop.Com's editor hit the town recently to talk to a few stogie-smoking ladies and get their take on the latest femme trend.

All of the cigar-smoking women we met share several attributes. They’re young -- but not too young, and they’re successful, attractive and very comfortable with themselves as professionals and as women.

Take Jenny, for instance, who works in sales for a healthcare maintenance organization and was recently spotted at Manhattan’s Club Macanudo, Punch Torpedo in hand. Jenny says she likes to smoke socially as the perfect end to a night out on the town. "It’s just one more way to raise the level of an evening’s fun."

Carol is a business writer, a Hobokenite and a confirmed sensualist. Her interest in cigars stems from her great appreciation for beautiful food and fine wine. Carol prefers to smoke sleek cigars, usually long panetelas , and likes to savor the experience at the end of a gourmet meal with an excellent chardonnay or a good martini. She smokes whenever she’s dining at a finer cigar-friendly restaurant or when she’s hobnobbing with friends at cigar bars like Hudson’s Bar and Books.

Nancy is a little suspicious of the new cigar-smoking woman. Apparently, she was smoking cigars long before cigar-smoking chics were cool. As a result, she exhibits the usual disdain of the trendsetter for the me-tooism of those trendoids who are snapping up her once-singular form of repose.

Nancy’s cigar-smoking is a weekly ritual at least. After a slogging away Monday through Friday, working on on-line banking solutions for her clients at a major financial institution, Nancy likes to kick back on the weekends at her Long Island beach house -- with a cognac or brandy in one hand and a Macanudo (usually a Baron de Rothchild Claro) in the other . Occasionally, she’ll buy a cache of cigars for when she invites a few friends over (these friends might consider making the gift of a humidor to this increasingly serious cigar smoker).

By now, our non-cigar-smoking female readers are probably running for the nearest smoke shop to give this thing a whirl. But Carol adds a word of caution to the lady neophyte: "It does makes your clothes stink, and it can give you a terrific hangover." So, take it slow by starting with a smaller cigar - ask the salesperson for a mild, well aged cigar. Good starters include the Griffin Privilege or the Davidoff No. 3. And set aside some extra money for additional dry cleaning bills. But take heart, Carol says; although the aftermath of cigars can be smelly, they sure taste great when you’re smoking them.

Women + Cigars = Sex

The suspicion is that women put up with the smoke, the smell and the drying cleaning because they know the sight of a dame with a cigar pressed firmly between her lips is irresistible. Says Carol, "Men get aroused by women smoking cigars. I get stared at a lot. And women seem to be either disgusted or intrigued."

During a recent evening at Club Macanudo in Manhattan, the advantages of being a cigar-smoking babe were much in evidence. Women were outnumbered by men (and surrounded by them too) by about 10 to 1! Amidst the Macanudo hubbub, Jenny was enjoying the attention. Said another cigar-smoking woman at the club, "There’s nothing wrong with getting off on the flirting aspect of cigar smoking. After all, we’re grown ups. We can handle it."

Women + Cigars = Power

Lately, the restaurant industry is catching on to the women and cigars trend by offering women-only cigar events where high-powered female execs do a lot of networking, wining, dining -- and smoking. For $95 a head, the Morton’s of Chicago steakhouse held a women-only cigar smoke at 26 restaurants across the U.S. last spring. The event drew 60 women to Manhattan Fifth Avenue Morton’s. There, the evening included chateaubriand and creme caramel for women to eat, Campari and Godet White Belgian Chocolate Liqueur for women to drink, and four cigars (carefully selected for both before and after dinner) for women to smoke. The evening attracted expert smokers and initiates alike and involved a lot of business card swapping. Both Carol and Nancy express interest in attending one of these networking bonanzas. "I’m looking forward to it," says Carol, who’s particularly interested in finding a cigar-smoking river cruise.