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Thursday, January 31, 2013

City / Drugs / Books Cheroots in Seattle?

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 3:40 PM

I hate to be one of those people who gets back from a trip and keeps yapping on about it, but... does anyone know where to get Burmese-style cheroots in Seattle?

I'm not talking about those frighteningly giant tobacco cylinders, the size of paper-towel rolls, that the old ladies seem to like so much. I mean the little conical green ones like these. They were great.

I disassembled one and it seemed like rough-chopped tobacco wrapped in a large, green, foresty-smelling leaf with a filter of pulped-up tree bark. And they have a pleasantly light, botanical smell—or at least I thought so—not as offensively sharp as a cigarette or bludgeon-heavy as a cigar.

If anyone sells them in the Seattle area, I'd love to know where.

Speaking of smokes, here's a paragraph Mark Twain wrote in a letter to his friend L. M. Powers:

I know a good cigar better than you do, for I have had sixty years' experience. No, that is not what I mean; I mean I know a bad cigar better than anybody else. I judge by the price only; if it costs above 5 cents, I know it to be either foreign or half foreign and unsmokable. By me I have many boxes of Havana cigars, of all prices, from 20 cents apiece up to $1.66 apiece; I bought none of them; they were all presents; they are an accumulation of several years. I have never smoked one of them, and never shall. I work them off on the visitor. You shall have a chance when you come.

Twain might have liked cheroots. They're cheap.

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Comments (18) RSS

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A very long time ago I bought a few things that looked like those and sound like what you describe in the smoke shop at Pike Place Market. That was like...'89, maybe? So it might not be too helpful.

Posted by alight on January 31, 2013 at 3:48 PM

I think you should go through a background check to buy them.

No one NEEDS a cheroot.

Posted by See, dumbfucks? on January 31, 2013 at 3:55 PM

@2 - I'm thinking that smokable products are MUCH more regulated in this country than firearms are, but yeah, whatever.

Posted by sperifera on January 31, 2013 at 4:04 PM

I used to smoke bidis about 10-12 years ago which are similar but smaller. Unfortunately they are outlawed now as far as I know. I wouldn't be surprised if cheroots are too.

Posted by ingopixel on January 31, 2013 at 4:05 PM

Comment warning: I know nothing about cigars.

That said, it looks like a fresh product. Anything you buy here, even if identical to what's available there, might be completely different. Like buying a mango or banana here - it's just sad after you've tasted perfection.

That's also might have been what Twain meant. Cheap means it was made nearby and sold at a local market. Expensive means a long journey from a far-off land, maybe passing through several middle men (and their warehouses) on the way.

Posted by Matt the Engineer on January 31, 2013 at 4:06 PM

Your best bet may be to contact someone you met there to ship to you. They're mostly handmade in small factories for local consumption, no? You could get something kinda sorta like them here maybe, but not with the flavor you're missing, the tobaccos and softwood chips wrapped in the tha nat phet leaf.

Posted by gloomy gus on January 31, 2013 at 4:08 PM

The way Twain feels about cigars? That's how I feel about beer.

Posted by Rotten666 on January 31, 2013 at 4:15 PM

Those "old" ladies are 34, but they smoke.

Posted by Sargon Bighorn on January 31, 2013 at 4:48 PM

Sounds like bidis. Backpack-rappin white boy stoners in my high school days *ahem* years ago LOVED those things. Being a supercool tobacco-huffing goth, I could not stand that hippie shit.

Posted by crabflex on January 31, 2013 at 5:13 PM

@8 for the win. I know of a couple of places in Santa Barbara, but the only places I can think of around here are:

a. Kirkland - can't remember the street tho
b. that place next to the racing tracks down south Emerald Downs it's real close
c. there's a smoking bar down on 2nd near Cherry I think, but am not sure.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on January 31, 2013 at 5:15 PM

Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.

... someone had to say it.

Posted by Reverse Polarity on January 31, 2013 at 5:24 PM

As a matter of fact, when I was a white boy high-school stoner I loved bidis. I don't know about "backpack-rappin" though, whatever that is.

Posted by LMcGuff

on January 31, 2013 at 6:26 PM

Fucking tourists. *eye roll*

Posted by Confluence on January 31, 2013 at 6:32 PM

The smoke shop on the first floor of the Smith Tower used to carry them. Then we got all pure and closed the shop.

Posted by Ballard Pimp on January 31, 2013 at 11:55 PM

@10 you mean the smoke shop in the middle of downtown between all of the bars and art galleries? if you've ever been in downtown kirkland you know where that is, it's next to that large brown irish pub, the one that looks like old wood. with the old guy that goes out and smokes a cigar on the bench when there's no customers?

Posted by didyoumeanthetobaccopatch on February 1, 2013 at 4:42 AM

@11: "Kissing someone that's self-righteous and intolerant is like licking a mongoose's ass."

Posted by no marketable skills on February 1, 2013 at 9:16 AM

@16: Perhaps, but that does not change the fact that being around someone who has just smoked a cigarette is revolting from a purely sensory standpoint.

Just because you can not smell or taste it anymore does not mean you do not smell like ass to others.

Posted by Theodore Gorath on February 1, 2013 at 10:18 AM

Kissing someone who smokes is like kissing someone who smokes, it is not at all similar to licking an ashtray. Not that I know anything about licking ashtrays...

Posted by More, I Say! on February 1, 2013 at 1:57 PM