Spotlight on the Texas Jewboy
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| Hand-rolled Texas Jewboys awaiting bands. |
This month, the Texas Jewboy is in the spotlight and we're offering exciting packages and sales on one of our favorite cigars. Get an exceptionally-priced Cigar of the Month trial pack, free shipping, and special savings on full boxes--plus, Texas Jewboy gifts with purchase deals--in the Kinky Friedman Cigars store.
Bearing the name of Kinky Friedman's legendary band, the Texas Jewboys, this larger ring gauge torpedo has one more leaf of tobacco, allowing it to create a more complex smoking experience. And like its namesake, this cigar packs a punch.
Hand-rolled with a Honduran wrapper, Costa Rican binder and long-leaf Honduran and Nicaraguan filler, the bold flavors of coffee and spice are concentrated in this 6 inch torpedo.
The Wrapper
The wrapper is the outer tobacco leaf of a cigar, which wraps around the binder, which in turn, holds the filler. Wrappers are responsible for about half of a cigar's flavor. The extra leaf in the Jewboy gives it a little extra Nicaraguan-style Texas Jewboy "KICK."
The Shape
The shape of a torpedo is effective because it "funnels" the smoke through a smaller opening at the head which concentrates the flavor and strength on the palette.
The two main categories of cigars are parejos and figurados. Parejos are the traditional premium cigar shape of a perfect cylinder with an open foot and a rounded and capped head; parejos are 'straight-sided'. Shaped cigars, or figurados, taper and bulge in a specific way to create a unique presentation and smoking effect.
Figurados, such as torpedos and perfectos, typically use a hybrid bunching technique for the filler. The tapering or bulging of the cigar requires extra skill and care when bunching occurs; a single misplaced leaf can easily plug a shaped cigar.
Figurados may also have a tapered head and/or foot, which involves a different rolling and wrapping technique than parejos. Only the most expert cigar rollers are able to roll figurado cigars. Due to the exceptional skills required to make various figurados, these cigars can be some of the rarest and most exquisite works of craftsmanship in the world.
The Name
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| Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys. Photo by Scott Newton. |
In 1971, Kinky Friedman organized his band, Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys, with a social message.
Outrageous and irreverent, but always thought-provoking, Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys mixed social commentary ("We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You") and maudlin ballads ("Western Union Wire") with raucous humor (such as "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed").
In keeping with the group's satirical songs, some members had colorful or politically incorrect names: Little Jewford, Wichita Culpepper, Rainbow Colors, Sky Cap, Panama Red, and Snakebite Jacobs.
Friedman and his band were invited to the Grand Ole Opry twice, recorded the only Austin City Limits episode that went unaired, and were instrumental in helping establish what would become the outlaw country music movement.
It seems fitting that, when it came time to name this powerful and much-loved cigar, Kinky looked to his powerful and much-loved band, the Texas Jewboys.
What some of our favorite non-Texas Jewboys have to say about cigars:
"Given the choice between a woman and a cigar, I will always choose the cigar."
Groucho Marx
When Milton Berle and his wife, Ruth, were in Paris on their honeymoon, they went shopping to get Ruth a new evening bag. When she saw one she liked in the window of a little shop, she went inside and asked the clerk to show it to her. She tried to fit one of Berle's cigars into it, but it didn't fit. She kept trying larger and larger bags until she finally found one that was the right size. They bought the bag and later that night, when getting dressed to go out, Ruth took four of her husband's cigars from his dinner-jacket pocket and put them in her purse. "Now you won't look so lumpy when we go out," she said. After that Berle began calling her his "humidorable."
"I smoke ten to fifteen cigars a day. At my age I have to hold on to something."
George Burns
Your Show of Shows, a 1950's comedy television show featuring Sid Caesar, came to be known for it's ?stable' of comedy writers which included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Lucille Kallen, Danny Simon, Mel Tolkin, and Carl Reiner. Not only has the on-screen clowning been celebrated, but the back stage antics of the group is the stuff of legends. It was even rumored that Sid Caesar once threw a lit cigar at Mel Brooks because he didn't like one of the jokes Mel wrote (Too bad for Mel that Sid wasn't smoking a Kinky Friedman Cigar, because he'd have never wanted to let go of it).
"Asthma doesn't seem to bother me anymore unless I'm around cigars or dogs. The thing that would bother me most would be a dog smoking a cigar."
Steve Allen
