Hello all. I’ve just returned from my honeymoon in Hawaii. It’s an amazing place, especially if you rent a Jeep, take the top down, and have a few car gars. Even better if you have some great company (the new wife was with me, and is still fully moneybags.jpgsupportive of my habit). I brought along 20 cigars for a 10 day trip, figuring I could always supplement in Hawaii if I needed to. I remember thinking as I packed, “Of course a place like Hawaii, which caters to tourists looking to cut loose and have some fun, would have loads of cigar shops.” Boy was I wrong. After driving around Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hilo (the Big Island) — a grand total 600+ miles logged — I found only two cigar stores. The first was near Pearl City, just outside of Pearl Harbor: Island Liquor & Cigar, 98-199 Kamehameha Hwy. #A09, Aiea, HI 96701. The prices were good (for retail), and I picked up an additional five gars, including an 1991 ESV Perdomo, a Fuente Don Carlos Robusto and some Sancho Panza bad boys (monsters gars for drinking nights). Unfortunately, I found this gem of a store at the beginning of my trip; I wish I’d known then that I would not find another real cigar store anywhere other than Oahu in the state.

Indeed, I found nothing on Hilo or Maui and only one “cigar shop” on Kauai: Kauai Cigar Co. For those of you who might be excited to know there’s at least one cigar store on Kauai, I should tell you that Kauai Cigar Co. sells a whopping two cigars: a “light” and a “dark” variety of a cigar called the “Island Prince” (roughly a toro in size with an ultra smooth wrapper).clipboard01.jpg Having cornered the cigar market on an island with 50,000+ residents, I guess I wasn’t surprised when the clerk told me these gars were a criminally expensive $12 each. I bought one “light” cigar, despite the fact that I was totally desperate at that point (day 8). I’d say it was “not horrible” for a cigar that’s supposedly comprised of 100% Hawaiian-grown tobacco. (Remember, they don’t even sell cigars on Hawaii, so it’s not like the place is known for having really good smokes.) But it was far from great, either. I would rate it a solid 7.0 if not for the price, which makes it about a 5.0 on our Leafytimes.com scale.

Then, out of pure desperation, I did the unthinkable. I bought some Swisher Sweets to have in the Jeep while I drove around on Kauai. Terrible things, really. Honestly, they’re better to chew on than to smoke. After returning the Jeep, I bought another Hawaii “special”: a “Royal Hawaiian Kona Coffee Flavor” cigar for $4.49 at an ABC Store (regular price $5.49). At the time, I was somewhat impressed by the fact that this cigar, which looked like a crudely-wrapped lancero, was “Tubed in Maui for Freshness.” Moreover, the packaging assured me that the “natural leaf” tobacco was “imported” (from?) and made “In the Aloha Spirit of the Hawaiian Islands” (huh?). Lastly, the company has a website, www.royalhawaiiancigars.com, so they’re somewhat accountable, right? Wrong. Just goes to show you that shit, even when well preserved and rolled with spirit, is still shit. I can honestly say that I would rather have had another swisher sweet. To be fair, the ABC Store did have some traditional fare for sale. But I just can’t stomach $14.00 for a Macanudo crystal or $16.00 for a Cohiba red dot rothschild. Ugh.

So, in sum, what did I learn from my trip to Hawaii? First, rent a Jeep, take the top off, and drive around all day smoking 222.jpgnice, fat stogies. Truly God’s country. Second, make sure you bring plenty of cigars because you won’t find any for sale anywhere other than Oahu, and even then you’ll need a little luck unless you have a GPS system or know the island really well. Finally, when it comes time to retire from my life as an attorney, I’m going to move to Hawaii, open up a cigar store and smoke/reap the profits. It’s an open market there, and I plan to conquer the five main islands with Dicksbain someday.

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