Features
The Sopranos: Mob Rule
Tony Soprano and Silvio Dante sit at a table at Nuovo Vesuvio restaurant. Amid brightly lit round paper lanterns, hanging lamps and in front of a mural of the Bay of Naples, the …
Absinthe's Second Coming
Ice water dripped like plasma over a sugar cube poised on a spoon, then fell into the lucid green liquid at the bottom of the glass, each drop spreading a liquid mist until all …
Falling For Skydiving
It bugged me for years that I had once chickened out of skydiving in Arizona. I rationalized it by saying that I had no insurance, but really I was just plain scared. So one day, …
Gourmet Golf
Baron Marcel Bich, the inventor of the BIC pen and disposable razor, was 68 years old and an avid sportsman. He had sponsored two challenges to win sailing's ultimate award, the …
Lake Effects
Experienced travelers know the feeling. You arrive at a new destination and find yourself wrapped in the unmistakable aura of home, as if you've been there before. No need exists …
Palm Reading
The Palm Readers, standing on street corners, train platforms and showroom floors staring into their mitts as if they held the Rosetta Stone. Can anything be that fascinating or …
Taking To The Sky
I took my friend Robert flying early last spring. Or rather, a flight instructor and I did. While I am a licensed pilot, at the time I wasn't "current," as they say in the …
The High Church of Salmon
The powerful, fresh scent of Canadian pine filters in through the barely open window in a cozy bedroom of MacLennan Lodge, overlooking the Upsalquitch River in Robinsonville, New …
The River Wild
The Bío-bío. The Zambezi. The Omo. The middle fork of the Salmon. The Tuolumne and the Tatshenshini. These names conjure up adventure, images of exotic lands far, far away. For …
Insights: Culture
Much has been said and written in opposition to swearing, most of it bullshit. Fortunately, the soap-in-mouth brigade is fighting a losing battle. Swearing is here to stay …
Insights: Finance
In past columns, we have shown that there are more ways to earn a return than just buying a stock. We have discussed absolute returns, relative returns, even returns from …
Insights: Indulgences
People frequently ask me, "What's the best _____?" It's an impossible question to answer. Almost without exception, there is not one "best." No single restaurant is the "best." …
Insights: Politics
Midway through his shortened transition period, George W. Bush -- despite his campaign promises to be a "healer" -- clearly had come out punching rather than pacifying. Perhaps by …
Insights: Sports
In the den of his rambling house in Atherton, a quiet grove of affluence some 45 minutes down-peninsula from San Francisco, Willie Mays was talking about the way things used to …
Auctions—Getting the Point
To most people, fountain pens are those hard-to-use, old-fashioned writing instruments that leak all over your favorite shirt pocket. But that dated perception has changed …
Cigars
Lost Great Smokes
Today's Cuban cigars are good quality but lack the richness of years past
Great Moments
Montecristo Cup 2000
The Rarest Cigar In The World
A Virginia cigar smoker acquires a newfound respect for tobacco farmers when he grows his own premium tobacco
La Gloria Miami
Under the aegis of new owner Swedish Match, Ernesto Perez-Carrillo will debut a special Miami version of his La Gloria Cuban
Ratings from this Issue
Up Front
My Day With The Sopranos
You may be wondering why this issue of Cigar Aficionado has a photo that occupies both the front and back covers. After all, the back cover is a highly valuable piece of …
Out of the Humidor
Dear Marvin, Crowing over his contribution to toppling Guatemala's democracy in 1954, and blaming JFK for the CIA's rout at the Bay of Pigs, Howard Hunt (December 2000 issue) …