Many months ago we gave you some tips on selecting a spirit to pair with your cigar.
Now I like a stiff drink as much as the next guy, but there are many times when a bourbon, scotch, cognac, port, or rum - the more traditional cigar cocktail pairings - just aren’t appropriate or desirable.
On these occasions, might I suggest you reach for a cup of Joe? Coffee isn’t the most exotic drink. Over half of all Americans consume it every day, with per capita consumption at 1.6 cups daily. But a fine cigar paired with a good brew can transform the average into the exotic.
Coffee and a cigar before noon, in the early afternoon, or after dinner (when a stronger spirit just isn’t possible when you need to drive home) can be delightful.
And the flavors in a good cup of coffee are highly complementary to cigars. Vanilla, mocha, chocolate, and roasted notes, as well as nuttiness and earth, can all be found in both cigars and coffee. In fact, tasting wheels used for coffee tasting would help any cigar smoker identify flavors in his tasty tobacco treat.
But much like bad cigars, people too often think of coffee as bad coffee, akin to the sludge at your workplace. But doing so would be like thinking that all cigars are like Phillies. I fear that, despite the billions of cups of coffee Americans drink every year, many people have never had a really good brew.
I make a pot every morning with my French press coffee maker using freshly ground beans from my manual burr grinder. Some people take it a step further, roasting their own beans from their initial green color to the deep brown we identify with coffee, while others have thousand-dollar fully automatic espresso machines. But such a setup isn’t necessary for good coffee.
Article comments
1 - Ummy
Great article. I agree on all counts. I am a fireman and of course, drinking on the job is not even a question. The other members of my company and I often times enjoy a good cigar. And, to compliment we always have an incredible cup of coffee. I also roast coffee and so there is always a pot on. I appreciate this article not only because of my coffee biz but because I grew up with cigars in the house and have carried on the pleasure I learned from my father. I'm glad to know that others have found the pairing so true to each other.
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
What this country needs is a good 5 shekel cigar!! Oh, sorry, you were writing about coffee, weren't you?
Seriously, I enjoyed the article immensely, even though I don't light up. I do drink coffee, and it is one my very few luxuries in life (writing here is another one).
If I did smoke, it would be a pipe, with seriously good tobacco stored in a good pouch and a good pipe cleaned as infrequently as possible, so as to benefit from all the resins of previous "thinking sessions". Nothing like a good "Oom Paul" to make us pseudo-intellectual types look a lot smarter than we really are - and give us lip cancer a lot earlier than we might normally get it...
But I digress.
Israel is a coffee house country. Often, when no other solutions are available, we meet in coffee houses to bitch about the corrupt bureaucracy (knowing full well that India, Pakistan Iran and Turkey are far worse), or in an expansive mood, we meet and try and plan the next multi-billion shekel adventure. Nothing helps. The next month, we are there again, this time plotting revolution against the corrupt bureaucracy that has thwarted our most recent multi-billion shekel adventure with the demand for a mere 10,000 shekel bribe to go with mountains of paperwork...
In this atmosphere, it seems almost snobbish to get a good French press coffee brewer to go along with the fresh ground coffee that one can buy in the shouk.
But, I'm getting snobbish in my old age. I might just break own and buy a good French press coffee brewer and invite my friends over for some good home-brewed coffee while we plan the next revolutionary breakthrough in - underwear...
No smokers allowed though.