Ron Barker Guests on Uncork your Mind with The Hudson Valley Wine Goddess
Myths about Wine and Cigar Pairings by Debbie Gioquindo
I met Ron on #winechat and was intrigued by his knowledge of wine and cigar pairings. A blog post can only touch the surface and I thought he would be a great guest for Uncork Your Mind.
For this podcast #9 I called down Ron Barker of Cigar Volante and The Virginia Wine and Cigar Trail.
A parting gift from his day job lead Ron to his next stage in life. While he had 5 years to bridge that gap he thought if he could do the three things he liked best in this next stage and turn it into a job he'd be set. The three things being drinking wine, smoking cigars and riding his motorcycle and that is exactly what he did.
Ron first began selling Panacea cigars, but it was hard to get them into cigars shops. When he began to attend festivals as a vendor he realized that people really liked these cigars and they paired very well with wine. The people coming up to try the cigars, were not cigar smokers, they wanted to try something new.
At the festivals he began to work with a few wineries and put together some initial pairings. These cigars are mild to medium in strength, they don't kill the palate and they enhance the flavors of the wine.
Then the idea came to Ron one morning to put together a virtual association to facilitate people who smoke cigars and wineries. Wineries are ideal because of the open space and serve the same demographic that he was looking at.
He began with 5 wineries and now The Virginia Wine & Cigar Trail has 20 host wineries who stock the cigars. Ron works with the wineries to create the pairing menu. When you go to taste you can also purchase a cigar to go with that wine.
How does that pairing work. Yes the cigar smoke does change the chemistry in your mouth. However, an example with the Pennsylvania Green Broadleaf he has paired with Sauvignon Blanc. What happens is you have a very acidic wine and the cigar tempers that acidity so you get more of the fruit flavors in your mouth.
When you purchase cigars it is important to keep them humidified so they don't dry out. You don't need to purchase anything fancy. A Tupperware container with the cigar in one corner and a wet paper towel in the other should do the trick. It is important to keep the cigar stored at a temperature of 60 degrees. If it's too cold you will dry it out and if it is to warm, you'll get cigar beetles (yuck!).
Listen to the podcast, as Ron goes into detail about the cigars, how they are blended and how their paired with the different varietals of wine.
December 11, 2013 (Washington, DC)–Recently, IPCPR President Finnie Helmuth, 1st Vice President Craig Cass, and others met with the Office of Management and Budget Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to discuss the FDA’s proposal to regulate premium cigars under the Tobacco Control Act. While we do not know what the rule contains, we remain vigilant to any provision that has implications on how you conduct business as a premium cigar retailer.
As a follow-up to that meeting, IPCPR’s counsel for FDA affairs, Dave Clissold of Hyman Phelps, prepared the letter below for IPCPR’s Federal Affairs Committee in conjunction with CRA and sent it to the Administrator of OIRA, Howard Shelanski. This letter outlines the argument why premium cigars do not fit the scope of the Tobacco Control Act because they are not habitual and are not desirable, affordable, or accessible to America’s youth.
IPCPR is continuing the fight to keep the FDA out of your humidor.
I watched the USA Rugby side in their test match against Canada and a recent video of their match against Georgia. This is the best rugby that I have seen them play yet.
https://www.smallbusinessbiggame.com/VA/CigarVolante-LLC/373236/388997
We view cigar smoking as an indulgence like drinking wine that involves all of your senses. Our wine and cigar pairings highlight the similarities. Help us share this message. You can vote for us once a day between now and October 14. Please do.
CigarVolante - Making the world safe for cigar smokers...
She identified herself as a nurse, looked me in the eye and said, "How can you sell these terrible things that cause lung cancer, lip cancer and esophageal cancer?"
I am rarely confronted so directly. It is usually something more passive-aggressive; a sniff or a glare, once, “Why are you even here?” but, never anything quite like this.
I responded.
The tobacco companies stopped naturally aging tobacco because it took too long and the longer that they had to hold the tobacco in inventory the more expensive it got so they started kiln aging the tobacco, drying the tobacco in ovens, but this doesn’t remove the toxins. And beyond that, over time they started adding chemicals to tobacco including ammonia to increase the addictive qualities of the cigarette. Ammonia is used in the free basing process (like free basing cocaine) because it facilitates the absorption of a chemical into the blood stream so, thanks to the tobacco companies, when you smoke a cigarette you are free-basing tobacco. The cigarette is a nicotine delivery system.
Cigar manufacturers, on the other hand, age and cure their tobacco for months and years. Many of our Panacea cigars have over 5 years of aging and, during that time one of the goals is to remove the ammonia from the tobacco.
There are two basic dimensions to a cigar; strength (the amount of nicotine), from weak to strong, and flavor (the intensity of the taste), from mild to bold. Many of the cigars over the last 10 years have been very strong but the Panacea Cigar is at the other end of the nicotine scale. They are mild to medium in strength and so have very little nicotine. That is one of the reasons that I chose them for wine and cigar and beer and cigar pairings; there is little nicotine to kill your palate or give you that unpleasant (for some) nicotine rush. So where the goal of the cigarette is nicotine delivery the goal of the cigar is flavor and relaxation.
Chemically, cigar tobacco is different than cigarette tobacco, too. Cigar tobacco is primarily alkaline and harsh on the lungs where cigarette tobacco is acidic and less harsh, making it easier to inhale but cigar smoke doesn’t have to be inhaled to accomplish its purpose, flavor and relaxation. Everything that a cigar is designed to do can happen above the tongue and you do it much more like wine tasting than smoking a cigarette. Smoking a cigar is much more than puffing and blowing, you move the smoke through your mouth and in much the same way that you aerate wine to release the vapors into your olfactory senses; you can move some of the smoke out through your nose without taking it into your lungs, called retrohaling. This is where many of the subtle and complex flavors of a cigar are discovered. Ultimately, cigar smoking is much more like wine drinking than cigarette smoking.
What nicotine that you have left in a cigar is absorbed through the porous membranes in your nose which is much more important to those that smoke the stronger cigars with more nicotine. Those of us that smoke milder cigars don’t need to worry much about that.
But, the chemistry is what makes this interesting. Have you ever brushed your teeth in the morning then had a glass of orange juice? The orange juice tastes bad because the alkalinity of the toothpaste has changed the chemistry of your mouth. The acidity of orange juice now is in conflict with your taste buds and it tastes bitter. We can use this to our benefit. I can use different cigars to change the chemistry of your mouth so that the wine that you are drinking will taste better (or worse, if I wanted to).
[At this point I gave her a long description of our Green Pennsylvania Broadleaf and how it works with acidic beverages. You can find the essence of that here.]
“You know,” she said, “I stopped with the idea of bludgeoning you with the evil of smoking, expecting you to be some dumb cigar-smoking guy and I am dumb founded. Accept my apology.”
I would love to say that she was the one that smoked the cigar and saw “the light” but she didn’t. Her girlfriend and fellow nurse did. I have saved another one.
CigarVolante – making the world safe for cigar smokers, one smoker at a time.
Great Grapes added another cigar vendor this year bringing the number to 5; a traditional cigar store, a cigar store with on-site cigar roller, a cigar store with a big online presence and a vendor of liquor-infused cigars. Trigger Agency has been a strong promoter of cigars at their events and we see a high percentage of return customers.
I was initially concerned at the potential competition but have found at the last several events that we do not compete with cigar stores directly. My impression is that people who see cigars as the focus of their experience, the aficionado, shop the cigar store booths looking for "THE" cigar. People that shop our booth do so after they find "THE" beverage. The wine or craft beer is the focus. Cigar smokers will find their cigar then look for a beverage to match. Our customers seem to do the opposite and we have proven that we can enhance their experience and so they come to us for cigars that complement the experience, don't control it. We call them Opportunistic Cigar Smokers.
An example of this came in an online discussion regarding cigars and craft beers. The comment was made that beer made cigars taste bitter. From the cigar smoker's perspective that is likely true as cigars have an alkaline pH which change the chemistry of the mouth making beer, which is generally acidic taste bitter. But, if you are are an opportunistic cigar smoker drinking a beverage with more acidity (lower pH) and go looking for a cigar that will complement it, you can do it. The perfect example is the Panacea Green, Pennsylvania Broadleaf whose Broadleaf wrapper has a relatively higher pH (more acidity). As a result it does not change the chemistry of the mouth to the degree that most cigars do and doesn't result in a bitter taste in the beverage. It becomes a complement. In some cases we have actually seen the chemistry of the mouth change enough to make an over-acidic wine more drinkable.
The Panacea Cigar has proven to be an ideal cigar for wine and craft beer pairings, mild to medium strong with complex and interesting flavors that pair across a wide range of beverages, including those with higher acidity and ideal for the Opportunistic Cigar Smoker.
Over the years my colleagues and I have written many articles about various bourbons, rums, ryes, whiskies, mixed cocktails, beer, and coffee—and which cigars they pair best with. You can peruse all of those articles here, or you can simply use our s...
Very good article to which I was able to offer the following:
Patrick, I am the Panacea Distributor in Virginia and sponsor the Virginia Wine and Cigar Trail. Our specialty is beverage pairings. If I might add my 2 cents:
Coffee - I love our Black Natural with its Ecuadoran Connecticut Shade wrapper with coffee. How is that for complete validation for your statement! I like to describe the flavors of the cigar as akin to smoking a latte with full and creamy flavors, something that I find lacking in many mild cigars.
Wine - I love your comment on Mata Fina. Two of our cigars, the Red Habano and the Black Maduro have Mata Fina wrappers. The Red, with its Habano binder tends to be a better cigar with the fuller bodied and red-fruit flavored wines (i.e. Cab Sav) while the Black Maduro is better with the earthier and lighter bodied reds (i.e. Pinot Noir).
The key to white wine pairings is dealing with the acidity, which you have noted as an issue with beer, as well. If you think of brushing your teeth (alkaline toothpaste) and then drinking orange juice you understand why it doesn't work. The toothpaste changes the chemistry of your mouth. Most cigar tobacco is alkaline, like toothpaste. One notable exception is Pennsylvania Broadleaf which is also used as chewing tobacco and slightly acidic rather than alkaline. It does not change the chemistry of the mouth and is an excellent pairing with more acidic beverages like white wine, a hoppy IPA, or a more acidic coffee.
I have focused on the lighter beverages like beer and wine as our cigars are mild to medium in strength, though we also do spirit pairings. Our Green PA Broadleaf is a good pairing with a crisp, Juniper-flavored gin, and is a great pairing with a real gin martini. We have a Corojo that is tasty with a spiced rum. We are the exclusive cigar in two of the local distilleries and do specific pairings with their spirits. But, that is another story.
We now have almost 20 members now out of the 250 wineries in the state of Virginia. All offer our cigars and encourage cigar smoking. We have specific vintage pairings and more details on our web site, www.cigarvolante.com.
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