Fidel Castro Resigns...

... and the only thing I want to know now is when can I get Cuban cigars without traveling to a foreign country? I guess that embargo finally worked, it only took 40 some odd years but we broke him.

I started smoking cigars back in 1997 just before the craze hit and I was always happy with a good Dominican or Honduran cigar and just dream of the day I would taste a Cuban. A buddy of mine smuggled some back from the Bahamas, a couple of Montecristo Tubos, and holy crap were they good. They were more than likely the best things I have ever put in my mouth. The flavor and the quality of smoke just beat anything I had ever smoked before. It then became my new mission in life to get my hand on as many as I could. It wasn't until a couple years later when my wife and I made a trip to St. Martin that I would have another Cuban. We found this little liquor/cigar store on the French side in Marigot that was run by a crazy, 5 foot tall Cuban guy named Jackie. He told us, repeatedly, that everyone else on the island that sold Cuban cigars were full of bullshit and if I paid more than $6 for one I was buying bullshit. Jackie also told us that he was the only one on the island that had the inside track on Cubans because once a year he would pay homage to the head tobacco grower in Cuban, who by the way didn't take any bullshit even from Castro himself, by bringing him a wheel of Dutch Cheese. I guess maybe the Dutch thought they could break communism but refusing to export cheese to despots. I bought a bunch off him and he was right the others were bullshit. I have been back to the island a few times since then but the store was close and his website was no more but I still would risk buying them from someone else and it is always one of my highlights of our trips to the Caribbean.

Needless to say I hope that Castro's brother brings in some democratic reforms not just for the people of Cuba but for the cigar loving population of America who is tried of circumventing a stupid law.