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Cigarettes

The earliest forms of cigarettes have been attested in Central America around the 9th century in the form of reeds and smoking tubes. The Maya, and later the Aztecs, smoked tobacco and various psychoactive drugs in religious rituals and frequently depicted priests and deities smoking on pottery and temple engravings. The cigarette, and the cigar, were the most common method of smoking in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central and South America until recent times.

Cigarettes were largely unknown in the English-speaking world before the Crimean War, when British soldiers began emulating their Ottoman Turkish comrades, who resorted to rolling their tobacco with newsprint. The cigarette was named some time in the 18th century. In the George Bizet opera Carmen, which was set in Spain in the 1830s, the title character Carmen was at first a worker in a cigarette factory.

At the beginning of this century, most smokers chose cigars; the cigarette was seen as somewhat effete and faintly subversive. Smoking was an almost wholly male custom. In 1904 a New York City policeman arrested a woman for smoking a cigarette in an automobile and told her, “You can’t do that on Fifth Avenue!” Smoking by female schoolteachers was considered grounds for dismissal. At an official White House dinner in 1910, Baroness Rosen, wife of the Russian ambassador, asked President Taft for a cigarette. The embarrassed President had to send his military aide, Maj. Archie Butt, to find one; the bandleader obliged.

The commercial manufacture of cigarettes had been a cottage industry until 1881, when James A. Bonsack invented a cigarette-making machine. In 1883 James Buchanan Duke, who had inherited his father’s tobacco business in Durham, North Carolina, bought two of Bonsack’s machines. Within five years Duke’s company was selling nearly a billion cigarettes annually, far more than any other manufacturer.

Spark that colossal Cuban stogie Pick and choose Look for shiny, oily cigars with a slightly spongy feel. Wrapper color is integral to a stogie’s flavor. As a general rule, light equals mild, while dark means rich plumes of smoke from the fiery depths of hell. And avoid anything brittle, like those IT'S A GIRL! cigars that dried out 14 months ago in your thirtysomething coworker’s desk. Clip the tip Use a standard “double guillotine” cigar cutter that chops from both sides with one easy pinch. Always cut just above the horizontal line where the cap meets the wrapper; this thumbnail-size cap of tobacco keeps the wrapper from unraveling. If you don’t have a cigar cutter, resist the temptation to bite off the end and find a sharp knife. Flame game Using a wooden match or a butane lighter (avoid Zippos and disposables, as lighter fluid taints cigars), rotate the stogie’s foot around the flame for 30 seconds. Toast it care­fully, and don’t char or else the smoke will taste burnt and bitter. Next, puff gently (don’t inhale) to draw the flame into the cigar, rolling it in your mouth to work up an even cherry. Ash stash A lengthy gray cylinder at the end of your stogie cools the smoke entering your mouth, so let your cigar enjoy a slow burn rather than tapping impatiently on an ashtray. If the ash becomes unstable (or a fire hazard), softly roll off the excess. When you’ve had enough, let it extinguish on its own—stub it out and your shot at a relight will go up in smoke. More dignified than belching the national anthem As parlor tricks go, blowing smoke rings is about as good as it gets. (There’s something a little homoerotic about swallowing swords.) “Blowing smoke rings is a rite of passage,” says George Brightman, director of business development at Cigar Aficionado. “You get a great feeling of satisfaction once you’ve mastered it.” So let’s get blowing! Step 1: Choose your poison Give your cigarettes to some needy high school kids and get yourself a man-size smoke. “You need a big mouthful of smoke,” explains Brightman, “and you’re only going to get it from cigars or a pipe.” Continuing in the Bill Clinton vein, don’t inhale—just light up and suck a large dollop of smoke into your mouth. Resist the urge to draw the smoke into your lungs, or the trick won’t work. Step 2: Blow it out your hole Purse your lips as if you’re about to say the letter o (as in “Oh, whoa, does Joe Piscopo blow”). Here’s the key: Quickly push the smoke out with the back of your tongue, says Brightman, as you contract your throat muscles to exhale a tiny puff of air. The overall experience should feel like you’re trying to swallow a walnut whole. Step 3: Get tricky Once you’ve got the mechanics down (prepare to devote a lot of time to practicing), several tricks easily follow. By varying the amount of space between your lips, you can change the size of the rings. Flex your throat muscles rapidly and you’ll shoot the rings out in rapid-fire bursts. Combine the two techniques and you can execute what Brightman calls “the coolest trick in my book: blowing a big ring and shooting a smaller one through it.” Our favorite trick is incinerating Tokyo with jets of flame shot from our pie holes…but that’ll have to wait for another month.

The use of tobacco in cigarette form became increasingly popular during and after the Crimean War. This was helped by the development of tobaccos that are suitable for cigarette use. Until World War I, cigarette production in America remained stable. But after the United States entered the conflict, in 1917, Duke’s company and the National Cigarette Service Committee distributed millions of cigarettes free to the troops in France, and they became so powerful a morale factor that General Pershing himself demanded priority for their shipment to the front. The war began to fix the cigarette habit on the American people: between 1910 and 1919 production increased by 633 percent, from fewer than ten billion a year to nearly seventy billion. Contemporary literature reflected the change. O. Henry’s carefully observed turn-of-the-century stories almost never mention cigarettes. But by the time of Ernest Hemingway’s expatriates in The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926, men and women alike smoke constantly.

In 1927 the American Tobacco Company launched an advertising campaign claiming that “11,105 physicians” endorsed Lucky Strikes as “less irritating to sensitive or tender throats than any other cigarettes.” Physicians’ groups responded angrily, but they were more offended by the commercialization of professional opinion than by the specific claims involved.

In 1946 the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company launched its campaign featuring the “T-Zone Test” (“Taste and Throat”) with a claim that “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!” Of course, many more doctors did smoke then than now, and Camels were extremely popular. In 1949 Camel advertised its “30-day Test”with a group photograph of “noted throat specialists” who had found “not one case of throat irritation due to smoking Camels!” By the early 1950s, however, as medical studies began demonstrating close links between cigarette smoking and ill health, the manufacturers stopped claiming that smoking was healthful and began instead to insist that no connection with disease had been proved.

World War II, like World War I, gave cigarette smoking an enormous boost. Cigarettes were sold at military-post exchanges and ships’ stores tax-free and virtually at cost—usually for a nickel a pack—and they were distributed free in the forward areas and were packaged in K rations. During World War I and World War II, cigarettes were rationed to soldiers.

The 1950s were the golden age of cigarettes on television. Arthur Godfrey would sign off at the end of his Chesterfield-sponsored variety show, saying, “This is Arthur ‘Buy-’em-by-the-carton’ Godfrey!” (The message was dropped in 1959 when Godfrey himself was found to have lung cancer. He underwent removal of the lung followed by radiation therapy, made a remarkable recovery, and lived for twenty-four years afterward.) When John Cameron Swayze anchored “The Camel News Caravan” in the early days of television, the sponsor required him to have a burning cigarette visible whenever he was on camera. Likewise, Edward R. Murrow was never seen on air without a cigarette; he died of lung cancer in 1965. But during the 1960s the tide turned against cigarettes on TV.

The cigarette has evolved much since its conception; for example, the thin bands that travel transverse to the "axis of smoking" (thus forming circles along the length of the cigarette) are alternate sections of thin and thick paper to facilitate effective burning when being drawn, and retard burning when at rest. Synthetic particulate filters remove some of the tar before it reaches the smoker.

Methods Of Smoking

Cigarette smoking is the most common form of tobacco consumption. Because of the curing process, the smoke is mild enough to inhale in overdose quantities, unlike cigar or pipe tobacco. Cigarettes also contain a number of additives, particularly to enhance taste. "Roll ups" are also very popular, particularly in European countries; these are prepared from loose tobacco, cigarette papers and filters all bought separately. Cigarettes are smoked by some with a cigarette holder.

A cigar is generally puffed, not inhaled. Cigars come in many shapes and sizes, the most common being the "Corona", "Cigarillo", and "Robusto". The tobacco used is grown throughout the Caribbean in places such as the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, and Cuba, but also in countries in other regions such as Brazil and Indonesia. Cigars generally come available in 2 categories in reference to color, "Natural" and "Maduro". "Natural" shades are ones that do not undergo a further fermenting process, unlike "Maduro" which in it's construction involves a further fermenting process to darken and strengthen (in taste) the leaf.

A pipe for smoking typically consists of a small chamber (bowl) for combustion of the substance to be smoked and a thin stem (shank) that ends in a mouthpiece (also called a bit). Pipes are made from a variety of materials (some obscure): briar, corncob, meerschaum, clay, wood, glass, gourd, bamboo, and various other materials, such as metal. Tobacco used for smoking pipes is often chemically treated to change smell and taste not available in other commercial tobacco products. Many of these are mixtures using staple ingredients of variously cured Burley and Virginia tobaccos which are mixed with tobaccos from different areas, such as Oriental or Balkan locations. Latakia (a fire-cured tobacco of Cypriot or Syrian origin), Perique (only grown in St. James Parish, Louisiana) or combinations of Virginia and Burley tobaccos of African, Indian, or South American origins. Traditionally, many U.S. tobaccos are made of American Burley with artificial sweeteners and flavorings added to create an artificial "aromatic" smell, whereas "English" blends are based on natural Virginia tobaccos enhanced with Oriental and other natural tobaccos. There is a growing tendency towards "natural" tobaccos which derive their aromas from blending with spice tobaccos alone and historically-based curing processes.

Pipes can range from the simple machine-made briar pipe to handmade and artful implements created by pipe-makers which can be expensive collector's items. The popularity of pipe smoking in Western countries has declined in recent years under the onslaught of cigarette advertising. However, it has also enjoyed a resurgence of late among younger and middle aged smokers who find its contemplative nature and age-transcendent status as "hobby not habit" to be both thoroughly enjoyable and stress-relieving. As many pipe-smokers say, "We don't inhale."

John A. Meyer, M.D. Cigarette Century. . December 1992; Volume 43, Issue 8.

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