I’m smoking one of my first true Italian cigars made “exclusively from Nostrano del Brenta Tobacco, an air-cured leaf, which is fermented and aged and used as the trinity of all cigars – wrapper, binder, and filler. This three-pack of cigars was gifted to me by my son’s girlfriend who had just returned from Italy.
The cigar? Nostrano del Brenta’s – IL DOGE. Named after “the historic ruler of Venice, Casanova, the famous romantic lover.”
And from the get-go, this type of cigar seemed to demand an acquired taste. Its shape is a long and skinny cigar with a baby bump of maybe the second trimester in the center intended to be divided in two to share with a companion.
Known as a cheroot, (open at both tapered ends), this rough-looking delight lit easily and gave my palate the impression that the taste was akin to that of a stick taken from a smoldering bonfire and inhaling the swirling smoke highlighted in the night’s sky.
IL DOGE is handmade of long-filler tobacco – tobacco that was said to be grown from Cuban seeds brought to Italy in the Brenta River Valley in the 1500s and has been grown there ever since.
How did it fare? Before I initially wrote it off (and I did), I thought about the way some people learn to swim by being chaotically, suddenly, and savagely thrown into a lake producing thrashing arms while struggling to survive the ordeal, and hoping to God that this abrupt initiation to something new would not be the beginning of the end.
Through it all, though, I thought, “Hmmm. Very woody.”
The clock in the garage where I am permitted to smoke, is always clicking and I felt as though I was being timed.
Still thrashing. I. Going under and splashing, and gasping for air was my excuse for drawing another draft.
Am I critically thinking during this surreal situation?
IL DOGE holds its ash, by golly, while its aroma slowly drifts away from the glowing, smokey campfire stick to becoming a pleasant and alluring bouquet of sheer satisfaction.
Rotating the cigar between my fingers I find I’m privy to almost inaudible cracklings from the wrapper. Perhaps air-cured cigars talk like that since my garage is unusually quiet at night so I could hear it whisper.
I’m beginning to thrash less and less. My arms are floating beneath the water, moving back and forth holding me up effortlessly. Hmm. I’m swimming?
The clock is still clicking rhythmically as a thought runs through my mind – borrowing from the Fifth Dimension’s “Grazing in the Grass”, “I can dig it, he can dig it, she can dig it, we can dig it, they can dig it, you can dig it. Oh, let’s dig it. Can you dig it, baby? I can dig it, he can dig it, she can dig it, we can dig it, they can dig it, you can dig it. Oh, let’s dig it. Can you diiiiiiig it, bay-B-E?”
And Nostrano del Brenta’s IL DOGE? It extracts one delicious, dynamic dimension – and I CAN dig it.
IrvCigarBroker 