A Little Background
On my 18th birthday my friends decided to throw a birthday party for me at my mom’s house. They even called in some friends that I had met at the local college to come back in town to celebrate. Because I was turning 18 and could legally purchase tobaccoo I decided I wanted to smoke a cigar. Unfortunately I decided this at about 10pm. I grew up in a dry county (yes they still exist) in Northwest Arkansas. We couldn’t sell beer, let alone have a cigar shop in my town. So we settled for the next best thing. We drove down to the closest gas station and picked up a 6 pack of … vanilla flavored Black n Milds!!! That’s right, my first cigar was a short filler, plastic tipped, flavor laced Black n Mild.
Honestly, I’m glad this was my first cigar. If someone would have made the mistake of giving me a Cohiba Cuban or something exotic and full bodied like that I would have never been turned onto cigars. Now I know what most of you all are thinking, a Black n Mild isn’t a cigar. Well it’s not a premium cigar, but it’s still a cigar and honestly it’s still a pleasurable smoke for me today. A buddy of mine brought some with him on a camping trip last year and even after years of enjoying premium cigars I still loved the Black n Mild cigar. I don’t know if it was the nostalgia of my youth or the flavor of the cigar that I liked so much. Either way I enjoyed smoking it.
I had a few friends there were avid cigarette smokers, but I’d never had one and to this day I’ve still have never had a cigarette. I don’t enjoy the smell of them and I’m sure I wouldn’t like the taste either. So this Black n Mild was actually going to be the first thing that I had ever smoked. I was very excited but I honestly, didn’t have a clue of what I was doing.
My First Time
So he were go, the embarrassing tale of my first smoking adventure. I remember distinctly I put the beige plastic tip in my mouth and began to try and breathe. I think I was breathing out more than I was breathing in. Because I didn’t get any flavor whatsoever. Someone handed me a lighter and I tried to mimic what everyone else was doing when lighting the cigar. When I brought the lighter to the foot I tried to draw air through the cigar but I was just burning the end of cigar and not getting it lit.
Finally after I had nearly set the cigar ablaze, a friend of mine – a girl nonetheless, (she had come back into town just for my party) ripped the cigar from my month and lit it properly for me. I was amazed at the sight, talk about being emasculated! She got that thing smoking like a freight train and gave it back to me and began teaching me how to smoke. I’m not exactly sure where she picked up her cigar smoking skills and I’m not one to speculate, I was just happy to receive the lesson.
For those of you that are looking for some visual stimulation to how this smoking tutorial went down, you might want to watch this and imagine the exact opposite. Enjoy.
1st Rule – Puck Your Lips Like a Fish
No lie, this was her instruction to me. She even did that thing that moms do when they push your cheeks in and try to pinch them. She was trying to simulate the expression on her face and I couldn’t help but laugh because I knew how ridiculous she looked doing it and I could only imagine what I looked like. Not to mention I had a front porch full of about 15 friends laughing and ridiculing me at the same time (Thanks a lot guys). So there I am trying pucker my lips like a fish with a plastic tip in my mouth with something that is burning hot as hell. Not exactly what I thought I would look like smoking a cigar. I pictured someone cool like Hannibal from the A Team when I smoked my cigar, but nope I look like a damn sucker fish.
2nd Rule – Pull in the Smoke, but Don’t Inhale
Yeah… How many of you got this one right the first time? I know it’s a right of passage to take a big drag of a cigar and try to inhale like you’re some sort of tobacco smoking god. But the truth is, you’re gonna cough, a lot. Then your eyes are going to start to water and you may even cry a little on the inside. But never on the outside you don’t want your friends to know how weak you!
So this is the 2nd rule she taught me. Pull the smoke in and then open the sides of your mouth and let the smoke escape. So I of course try this and fail miserably. I eventually pulled some smoke in, but not after exhaling so much that the cigar went out on me. So I just handed it over to her to light again. Then I tried this whole pulling smoke into my mouth thing again, which I went on to learn is called ‘drawing smoke‘. After about 30 minutes, I got the hang of drawing the smoke in and exhaling without coughing. Hey I’m starting to feel pretty good about myself! So what’s the next step?
3rd Rule – Enjoy and Try to Blow Smoke Rings
Heck yes! That’s what I’m talking about, so after about 10 mins of chiefing on this Black n Mild I was ready to start blowing smoke rings on this thing. I actually picked up on this pretty quick and although they weren’t perfect you could tell they were smoke rings. I would try and tell how she explained blowing smoke rings to me, but I feel like it would result in way too many “That’s What She Said” jokes and it might make this post show up on certain X rated websites. So just imagine what she might had said, something towards of the effect of making your mouth an “O” and moving your jaw up and down slowly… Yeah that’s as much detail as you’re getting!
Triumphant
By the end of the night I think I had made it through 3 Black n Milds and eventually lighting the last one on my own. It was a great way to celebrate my 18th birthday with friends around and learning something new and of course being completely emasculated. All in all a great way to ring in my supposed ‘man-hood’. That night kickstarted my obsession in cigars and eventually led me to start this site. Most everyone has an embarrassing first smoking story, but it’s part of brotherhood. Loving the leaf and enjoying all the things that come along with it. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this little glimpse into my smoking history. We want to hear your story! Leave us a comment below and tell all about your first smoke.
–Siz
