Camacho Man? The Joke's On Me.

Last night I met my niece's fiance for the first time. Nice guy: Harley-riding, fast-talking, good-natured. A mechanical engineer, but unlike most engineers I've known, outgoing and friendly as hell. Kind of like your stereotypical Astralian, only from Canada. To top it off, the guy pulls out a cigar after dinner and hands it to me. "A little something for you, buddy."

It was a Camacho Maduro, robusto size. "Wow. Thanks!" I said. I was genuinely thrilled, if not a bit sheepish. My whole family was sitting around the deck table, and this was only the second time my two teenaged sons had ever seen me with a cigar in my hands. I tried to be cool and rookie-like. "Camacho Maduro" I read slowly, as if it were foreign to me, the unexperienced, hardly-ever-smoking novice. Right. Actually, it was a type I had tried before. In fact, I had one just like it in my humidor. My wife must have snooped out the brand name and passed it along to him. Either that or it was a hell of a coincidence. And if it was, he had good taste.

Good guy. Camacho guy. He had my blessing for the marriage, not that he needed it.

I set the cigar on the table, not wanting to appear too eager in front of the boys. Must act civilized and cultivated: A man with his impulses under control, only smoking cigars on momentous occasions, or when handed to me by benificent others as a gesture of good will.

Two minutes later, my wife stops in the middle of a conversation and says: "Aren't you going to smoke that?"

"Of course," I protested, as if this prompting had been required. I got up from the table and went inside for my cutter. After slicing the cap off, I had second thoughts: Just what condition was this cigar in? The Canadian had ridden 18 hours on his Harley to get here. I was guessing he hadn't kept it in any sort of controlled environment - a sealed plastic bag, say, along with a water pillow or humidification strip. He himself was smoking from a cheap pack of Backwoods. I actually thought about creeping back to my humidor, grabbing my own Camacho Maduro, and switching it with the one he'd brought. At least I knew mine would be fresh. On the other hand, I'd already cut this one open. What a conundrum! Outside, my wife called out: "Honey, what are you doing in there?"

Heck with it. If this one was dried out, I'd just quit smoking it.

And so I returned to the table and fired up the thing. Fortunately, the 18-hour trip seemed to have had no detrimental effect: The Camacho burned big and bright, imparting the same peppery, masuline flavor that I had remembered from one I'd tried a couple months ago.

Then, two inches along, the thing went out. Dang! I casually cut off the ashes and relit, hoping not to look like a fiend in front of the boys. It fired up again just fine, and the flavor immediately opened up into the sweet spot. And what a sweet spot it was! Camacho knows what they're doing - not too sweet, not too heavy, not too hot, not too tight. Just right, like Goldilocks at porridge bowl number three.

Five minutes later, the darned thing went out again. Must have been the motorcycle trip. Again I relit, and this time it stayed lit all the way through to the nub. Sweet spot all the way. You've got to hand it to Camacho: Not many cigars can hold their peak all the way to the end.

As for the two times it burned out: I figured it could have been the humidity (it was sweltering outside) or the motorcycle trip. Didn't really matter. Despite the re-lights, this cigar kicked ass.

A few minutes after midnight, I crawled into bed, a happy man. Sally came in from brushing her teeth and said, "So, did you enjoy that cigar scheme that Robert and I pulled off for you?"

"What do you mean, scheme?"

"Didn't you know? I snuck that cigar out of your humidor and told him to give it to you. Figured that way you'd be willing to smoke it in front of the boys."

"Oh, right," I said knowingly. Damn, I'd been had. "What made you pick the Camacho?"

"It was just lying on top and we grabbed it."

"Oh," I said. Not as if the Canadian had shown fine judgement, or played any decisive role at all. It was all yet another demonstration of the lengths my wife will go to "ease" me out of the cigar closet in front of the boys.

And the Backwoods-smoking Canadian? He still has my blessing. Even though he's no Camacho Man.