Gas station cigars. I don't have high expectations, since most of them are grape or watermelon brown-paper-wrapped giant cigarettes that are designed to be easily opened and mixed with marijuana.
Still, there are a few decent smokes at your average gas station. Not coincidentally, they are the cigars/cigarillos wrapped in actual tobacco leaf, Al Capone and Backwoods being chief among them.
This morning I came across Red Buck Filtered Cigars, which bills itself as "American's Outdoor Smoke". I don't know how long the brand has been around, but it's new to me, so I thought I would review it.
The company's website is a redneck's dream. There's car racin', huntin', fishin', women. All the things red-blooded Americans prefer to do out of doors. The big rhetorical problem I see here, the inconsistency in the branding message, is the filter. We're not talking a Backwoods, which is just tobacco wrapped in tobacco, which you clench between your teeth and only take out of your mouth to remove the flecks of tobacco that have flaked off onto your tongue. It's not even a wood-tipped Swisher Sweet, which you can clamp down on with all your might, as you smoke in acrid yet manly filterless joy. This isn't particularly red-blooded. Or outdoorsy.
It's basically a cigarette. The "cigar" is wrapped in paper, and is nearly 1/3 filter. (An article of faith: filters protect the smoker from the crap the manufacturer has put in himself.) Still, as a cigarette, it was pretty satisfying. I paid 35 cents for a packet of two, each about twice as big as a cigarette. I got the special blend, which is probably why it tasted like tobacco. They do have flavors like menthol and cherry. If the fact that they have menthol doesn't give away the fact that they're marketing a cigarette as a cigar, I don't know what will. Anyway, no real complexity, but a little more body that an American Spirit cigarette would have.
So I wasn't mad, and the 35 cents thing might mean that the whim could strike again, but for now my gas station choices continue to be Al Capone and Backwoods.
Still, there are a few decent smokes at your average gas station. Not coincidentally, they are the cigars/cigarillos wrapped in actual tobacco leaf, Al Capone and Backwoods being chief among them.
This morning I came across Red Buck Filtered Cigars, which bills itself as "American's Outdoor Smoke". I don't know how long the brand has been around, but it's new to me, so I thought I would review it.
The company's website is a redneck's dream. There's car racin', huntin', fishin', women. All the things red-blooded Americans prefer to do out of doors. The big rhetorical problem I see here, the inconsistency in the branding message, is the filter. We're not talking a Backwoods, which is just tobacco wrapped in tobacco, which you clench between your teeth and only take out of your mouth to remove the flecks of tobacco that have flaked off onto your tongue. It's not even a wood-tipped Swisher Sweet, which you can clamp down on with all your might, as you smoke in acrid yet manly filterless joy. This isn't particularly red-blooded. Or outdoorsy.
It's basically a cigarette. The "cigar" is wrapped in paper, and is nearly 1/3 filter. (An article of faith: filters protect the smoker from the crap the manufacturer has put in himself.) Still, as a cigarette, it was pretty satisfying. I paid 35 cents for a packet of two, each about twice as big as a cigarette. I got the special blend, which is probably why it tasted like tobacco. They do have flavors like menthol and cherry. If the fact that they have menthol doesn't give away the fact that they're marketing a cigarette as a cigar, I don't know what will. Anyway, no real complexity, but a little more body that an American Spirit cigarette would have.
So I wasn't mad, and the 35 cents thing might mean that the whim could strike again, but for now my gas station choices continue to be Al Capone and Backwoods.
Backwoods isn't bad for a budget smoke. I was introduced to them by a priest who smokes the usual mid-range cigars with others but fires up a Backwoods cigar when alone.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm just as happy to smoke a pipe. Nothing beats bulk latakia as a budget smoke for me.