Dear Cigar Lovers,

Singapore is a very different city to smoke cigars in.

Smoking is tightly regulated, dedicated cigar venues are relatively few, and prices are high.

So over a few days, we tried three venues.

Capitol Cigar & Whisky Lounge by Quaich Bar was the most traditional.

Dark, composed, and built around whisky and cigars. You can read about it in the previous letter.

CÉ LA VI, above Marina Bay Sands, was almost the opposite.

The cigar selection was limited, a Montecristo No. 2 was essentially the only choice but the setting was exceptional.

Singapore stretched out beneath us in light and glass.

Music behind us. People drinking, talking, moving through the evening.

More energy than ritual.

My favourite venue, though, was Quaich Bar Avant-Garde.

Mostly because it is outside, has a much wider selection and is in a calm environment.

Singapore’s warm evenings suit a cigar beautifully.

There, I tried a Leon Jimenes 300 Series Robusto.

A handsome cigar with a textured wrapper, a slightly resistant draw, and bright spice over dry wood.

Easy to overlook.

And surprisingly enjoyable.

There was no reputation to live up to. No expectation attached to the band.

I simply smoked it.

And the longer I sat there, the more I liked it.

That stayed with me.

We often decide what deserves our attention before we have properly experienced it.

The famous cigar should impress us.

The expensive bottle should taste better.

The prestigious room should create the better evening.

But pleasure is rarely so obedient…

A cigar does not know what you paid for it.

It only knows whether you want another draw.

Perhaps you have had one too, a cigar you expected little from and somehow still remember?

Travelling also has a way of showing you what you value at home.

Singapore gave me warm evenings, beautiful rooms and one of the best city views I have smoked a cigar over.

London gives me something different.

Variety.

Old hotels, terraces, clubs, neighbourhoods.

The freedom to wander from one room to another and let the afternoon become the evening.

Different cities create different rituals, and perhaps that is what makes travel so revealing. Sometimes it is only somewhere unfamiliar that you begin to discern what you truly enjoy in a place, in a cigar, or in life.

León Jimenes comes from one of the oldest names in Dominican tobacco.

In 1903, at just 18 years old, Eduardo León Jimenes founded La Aurora in Santiago province with six cigar rollers and a small patch of land. What began modestly would grow into the oldest cigar factory in the Dominican Republic.

The León Jimenes brand itself arrived much later, in 1987, created by La Aurora as a tribute to Eduardo and his brother Herminio. It was designed around a smoother style of smoking, distinct from some of the factory’s heavier expressions.

That history makes the 300 Series rather fitting.

It is not a cigar that arrives demanding attention.

It comes from a family with more than a century of tobacco behind it, yet remains modest, accessible and easy to underestimate.

Which, in this case, was precisely part of its charm

Until next Sunday.

Yours truly,
The Cigar Lover

Cigar Letters
^{No. 34}