A couple of excerpts from the Cigar Aficionado archives. A lot of interview and accounts are
here.
Sigmund Freud- "Freud usually smoked a cigar called a trabucco, which was small, relatively mild and considered the best of those produced by the Austrian monopoly. But he complained that they were inferior, preferring the
Don Pedros and Reina Cubanas, which he could get during his vacations in the picturesque Bavarian town of Berchtesgaden. Freud also enjoyed
Dutch Liliputanos, and when old age limited his travel, he frequently recruited friends and colleagues to bring him his favorite cigars from across the border."
Groucho Marx-"In a large humidor in his upstairs study he kept a trove of the most expensive cigars money could buy--mostly
Dunhills. There were light cigars for after lunch, and heavier, more pungent ones for after dinner. The latter were his favorites--especially the 410s. He also kept on hand a box of extra-sized cigars called Belindas. These, I believe, were the kind Winston Churchill smoked."
Mr. Sam Clemens- "In those days the native cigar was so cheap that a person who could afford anything could afford cigars," Clemens recalled. "Mr. Garth [the father of a friend of the young Clemens] had a great tobacco factory. He had one brand of cigars which even poverty itself was able to buy. He had had these in stock a good many years, and although they looked well enough on the outside, their insides had decayed to dust and would fly out like a puff of vapor when they were broken in two. This brand was very popular on account of its extreme cheapness. Mr. Garth had other brands which were cheap, and some that were bad, but the supremacy over them enjoyed by this brand was indicated by its name. It was called '
Garth's damnedest.'"
Some reports said that he would buy Havanas when he could afford them, even though he once wrote, "Nearly any cigar will do me, except a Havana." He sampled the better cigars available in those days, but seemed unsatisfied. So, the story goes, he found a New York tobacconist, whom he insisted provide him with his worst cigar. He was delighted.
