SMOKING HAUTE

The growing legion of women cigar smokers are storming the male order of the fragrant leaf for one upmann-ship

- SHANKER GANGADHAR

Marriage was no match for a good cigar that Rudyard Kipling had ever lit. "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke," was the tobacco trope that defined him as a white male of Britain's imperial age where woman, if included "was merely as an ornamental appendage and in an inferior role similar to that of the trusted native,"-as feminist author Julia Bush put it. Kipling, Britain's first Nobel Laureate in Literature, would have been as flummoxed as a Cuban in a 'No Smoking' lounge to learn that George Sand was no ornamental Belle Epoque maiden, but a celebrated French author who discovered that smoking a cigar can "fill the solitary hours with a million gracious images."

Now, at gatherings of George Sand Society in Santa Monica, women cigar smokers outnumber men three to one. Then there is the Canadian women's hockey team, which celebrated a gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics with cigars and beer. Cigar-loving ladies like Sushmita Sen who like to puff on her Cohiba in public don't care for gender apartheid. Trendy Indian women smokers are discovering that the complex flavours of a cigar like H Upmann Magnum 46 wrapped in a cocoa-coloured leaf are as versatile as their own personalities: a creamy sugary draw with hints of nuts, toasted tobacco, and underlying notes of pine, coffee and leather. The 46 was the only Magnum-branded cigars in the Upmann portfolio until the Magnum 50, an Edición Limitada came along in 2005, to be followed by the Magnum 50 and the Magnum 48. The Magnum 54's thickly veined wrapper is less oily than a Vegas cardsharp's smile while its cold draw is mild and slightly salty; the tastes of cedar and hay are pleasant contrasts. From the first to the final draw, the well-constructed, albeit slightly soft Magnum 54 gives off notes of wood, hay, black pepper, and creamy bitterness.

Band of loyalists