ROASTED AND TOASTED IN TAMPA

The First Lesson I Learned About Tampa: This town has the friendliest cab drivers in the world.

Case in point: I’m waiting in the lobby of my hotel, dressed to kill for Davidoff’s elegant black-tie dinner where they would be officially debuting their new Millennium Blend cigar. Starving and eager to light up the new cigar for dessert, I surprisingly see my co-worker and dining companion run into the lobby, still dressed in decidedly non-black tie convention attire, telling me to just wait a few minutes; he’s going upstairs to change clothes. Don’t worry, he assured me: the cabdriver that brought him from the convention will wait outside - and here’s the kicker - with the meter off. Needless to say, a few minutes turned into twenty, and this kind cabdriver turned away the flood of people flocking out of the hotel in need of transport, losing business while staying true to his word. We gave our man a generous tip, of course, along with several good cigars. Another cabby that I’d ridden with, in fact, was not only generous and helpful with city information, but he actually let the SMOKE crew pay our fares with cigars. As a New Yorker - who’s learned to expect little from cabbies but a rudimentary grasp of English - I was taken aback by all this. But this was just the first of several lessons I learned about this most unique town over the course of the 2001 RTDA Show.

The RTDA (Retail Tobacco Dealers of America) Show, as most visitors of this Web site probably know, is the biggest event of the year for the cigars, pipes, accessories industry, gathering manufacturers, retailers, and a handful of us media types together for a week of selling, buying, schmoozing, and deal-making. This year’s venue was Tampa, which was an appropriate choice. Long before southern Florida became renowned for butterfly ballots and hanging chads, it was widely recognized as the U.S.’s center of cigar culture. Retailers were treated to several long-awaited new releases, notably C.A.O.’s new Brazilia and nifty-looking box-pressed tubos; La Perla Habana’s new Black Pearl sizes; the aforementioned limited-edition Davidoffs; and the latest from Tabacalera Perdomo and their masterful Cuban-style cigar techniques, most notably the Cuban Parejo and the simply-named The Cigar. And speaking of Cuba and Cuban culture...

The Second Lesson I Learned About Tampa: There are no unattractive people in Ybor City.

Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. But it would’ve been extraordinarily difficult to convince me otherwise the night a large contingent of cigar people convened at a Centro Ybor club called Amphitheater for a raucous bash thrown by Drew Estates, the maverick young company behind the popular Acid cigars, and the all-new Industrial Press line, which debuted at the show. Imagine leaving the real world behind and entering an MTV video, or an episode of Wild On that lasts a whole weekend. It was as if this little village, so steeped in tradition and cigar making history (Carlos Fuente grew up here), had become a staging ground for some genetic experiment where someone decided to clone a bunch of gorgeous models and populate a town with them. And no, this is by no means a complaint. That particular evening ended with a contingent of SMOKE’s male staffers kicking back at the open-air lounge of the King Corona Cigar Factory - an Ybor landmark profiled in our Summer issue - sipping beers, puffing on stogies, and watching the girls go by. Suddenly, I understood why cabdrivers around here seemed in such a good mood all the time - though I still can’t fathom how they can do their jobs without recurring bouts of whiplash.

The Third Lesson I Learned About Tampa: This is not a baseball town.

The fact that the hometown Devil Rays are an expansion team with the worst record in the majors surely has something to do with it, but I was still a little surprised that, among all the locals I encountered, I saw only one guy sporting a D-Rays cap, and didn’t catch any of the typical barroom baseball conversation one usually encounters in mid-August. The D-Rays were even on a mini-win streak when I first arrived. They love their football, though, the Tampa folk; Buccaneers paraphernalia was everywhere, and in a sense, was even evident among the RTDA exhibitors: Bucanero Cigars, the Costa Rican boutique brand that was conceived over drinks in a Tampa bar, had one of the most impressive displays at the show: a huge pirate ship where visitors could walk aboard and sample Bucanero’s new El Capitan, a cigar already garnering rave reviews. Not to be outdone, General Cigar actually had their cigar-lounge-on-wheels, the Club Macanudo tour bus, parked inside the arena and open to the public. Patrons were also lured by a blackjack table, the Punch photo booth, and the opportunity to sample the new Sancho Panza Dulcinea, Partagas Black Label, and Cohiba Extra Viejo.

Speaking of cigar lounges (and football) legendary Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka made an appearance at the show, meeting people and promoting his cigar club. He’s a big guy in person, as you might expect, and when I shook his hand, I noticed he was wearing his Super Bowl ring. A valuable item to be flaunting at a crowded show, but then, who’s gonna be brave enough to try to take it off him? The coach wasn’t the only cigar-loving celeb to make the rounds at RTDA: two brands from Altadis benefitted from big-name presence at their booth, specifically the Hamilton’s Reserve line, with an appearance by the brand’s ultra-tan namesake, actor George Hamilton; and the new Don Diego Players Club got a (ahem) shot in the arm from a photo- and-autograph session with spokesman and former “Sopranos” star, Vincent “Big Pussy” Pastore. The Altadis party even took on a “Sopranos” theme in Pastore’s honor, doing up a huge ballroom like the show’s infamous Bada-Bing Club, complete with dancers - dressed tastefully enough for the mixed crowd, of course. All in all, a worthy sendoff for us weary conventioneers.

The Fourth Lesson I Learned About Tampa: It rains quite hard, and quite often, but never for very long.

I was distressed the morning after the show, when I saw rain coming down. After all, that was the day I’d set aside to go to Busch Gardens with the girls of Heavenly Cigar Company, a group of lovely and enterprising young ladies who are currently producing some of the most sought-after flavored cigars on the market. The rain ended right when we pulled into the parking lot (hey, a gift from Heaven!) and we spent a day riding roller coasters, taking in the African safari, and generally unwinding from a very busy show - a day that came to an end much too soon, as we all were having so much fun, we had to rocket down the highway afterward to get me to my flight back to New York on time. I suppose that’s the last Lesson I Learned: much like a Devil Rays winning streak, some good things in Tampa are often over before you really get a chance to enjoy them.