Connoisseurs converge at Beale St. Cigar Festival
Memphis is known world-wide for the smoky scent of barbecue that at any time of year drifts across the city.
But on Sept. 1, the smoky aroma was of a different flavor as the smell of fine cigars wafted its way along Beale Street during the city’s fourth Beale St. Cigar Festival, held at Handy Park.
The event was one of about a dozen throughout the day and evening in celebration of 901 Day, sponsored by Choose901, a movement to celebrate all that is great about Memphis.
More than a dozen cigar vendors catered to the cigar aficionados who smelled, smoked and discussed what organizer Robb Hunter called a hobby, not a habit.
It was the first cigar festival, Hunter said, in the city’s nearly 200 year history.
“Cigars bring people together. And that’s what we need more of in this great city,” said Hunter, the owner of cigar bar Robusto by Havanna Mix on Peabody Place. “Cigars allow us to have great conversations. We meet new friends. We reminisce with old ones. It is one of the very few things that break all barriers because it doesn’t matter your socioeconomics, your color, your social status. It’s about the love of the stick. The love of the cigar.”
Hunter was expecting between 2,500 to 3,500 people to come through the festival to inspect and purchase cigars from the 14 vendors representing various cigar brands.
The cigars range in price from $10 to $25. Prices vary based on the quality and age of the tobacco, he said.
Long held as a man’s indulgence, Hunter said that now about 35 percent of cigar smokers are women.
“Because women enjoy the finer things also,” Hunter said.
That number includes women like Taneta Hicks, from Tampa, Florida, her sister Sharon Hicks, from Denver, and their niece Kristen Ellison, from Houston. They’re in Memphis this weekend for a family reunion and were excited to stumble upon the cigar festival.
Taneta has been smoking for about five years. Sharon says she’s been “enjoying” for about seven or eight years and began to study cigars about five years ago. Ellison, a “baby” enthusiast, has been smoking for three years.
In order to appreciate a good cigar, one must first learn how to smoke it, Sharon said.
“You want a smooth even draw. Now you’re not going to take that into your lungs. You’re going to taste it and then you push it out,” Taneta said.
It never goes into your lungs and it never comes out of your nostrils, she said.
“And then smelling it, the way you smell a nice bouquet in wine, you’re smelling that cigar. What is that aroma? My favors are cherries and vanilla,” Sharon said.
It’s like going to a vineyard to test wine, the women said.
“You’re going to look at it, your going to smell it, you’re going to taste it,” Ellison said.
And, cigars are all organic and don’t have the chemicals found in cigarettes, said Taneta, a registered nurse.
“What’s in a cigar? Tobacco,” she said.
Crowned Heads cigar vendor Matt McVicker from Nashville was in Memphis for the second year and enjoys the camaraderie of events like the cigar festival.
“We’re all friends because of cigars and we get to hang out for a day because this is what we do. It’s not very often that we get to be together for a day and have that brotherhood aspect of it,” McVicker said. “So I love events like these because, again we get to all be together, sell our cigars and have fun together.” For Hunter, being one of the 901 Day events and being recognized by Choose901 is an honor.
“901 is a great organization that everyone goes to find out what’s going on in the city. We’re honored to be a part of that and we definitely want to make Memphis proud,” he said.
And he believes his festival will continue to grow.
“This definitely has legs,” Hunter said. “The future of this is to bring more people into this great city so that we can showcase some of the finer things we have to offer here in Memphis and to untimely get on the (Mississippi) river at Tom Lee Park with tens of thousands. So it can go from a one-day to a two- or three-day event.”