In the digital day and age, hobbies are slowly being phased out for video games, social media, and staying at home to stream television and movies. We are experiencing the downfall of coin/stamp collecting, antique thrifting, and even sewing/quilting. Many hobbies are now considered “old people” hobbies, so it has me asking is cigar smoking among the dying hobbies? I grew up around cigar smokers. My neighbor never left his house without at least six cigars because he never knew when “he was going to want one”. The pastors at my church repeatedly quoted Charles Spurgeon, “Well, dear friends, you know that some men can do to the glory of God what to other men would be sin. And notwithstanding what brother Pentecost has said, I intend to smoke a good cigar to the glory of God before I go to bed tonight.” I am considered young. I am 24 years old, and I have been smoking cigars since I was 18. But am I the outlier, or am I the norm?
Very recently, I found myself at Strauss Tobacconist located in Florence, Kentucky. I am a big fan of any local lounge, but I am a regular at this one. I usually find myself talking to a number of significantly older men who have a lot of wisdom to share. However, this past time, I was met with a strange view. I found two other people my age there, one of which was 23 and the other of which was 25. They had never met each other before, and it was just pure luck that there were three dudes present in their early to mid 20’s. This was quite a shock to me because I am usually one of the younger ones there, so I began to wonder how many of us are there? I went home and polled Instagram to see what exactly are the ages of my cigar-smoking followers. Shockingly, 43% of people said that they were between the ages of 21-29. But that poll wasn’t enough as it is strictly my followers, so I plunged a step further, and I went to a completely different lounge. Blaze Cigar Lounge & Bar located in Newport, Kentucky caters more to the night crowd. There were definitely a lot more people who were 35 years old and up; however, I still saw substantially more than just two people my age. My lovely wife and I scoured the crowd. I counted people who appeared to be under the age of 35, and she counted people who appeared to be above 35. For every two people that appeared to be above 35, we counted one person that appeared to be below 35, which is a 2:1 ratio. The bar was packed. Going back to online research, I polled the sub Reddit R/Cigars with 7.4k members and on the Facebook group “Cigar Nation” with 6.9k members. Both of these polls were put up for 72 hours. On Facebook, the poll showed 3% of people were 21-29 years old, and Reddit showed 18% of people were between the ages of 21-29 years old. And finally, just to see if I could get any more information, I reached out to the management of a few lounges in my area to see if they had a general estimate of their normal constituents.
I reached out to Blaze Cigar Lounge & Bar in Newport, KY, to Strauss Tobacconist in Cincinnati, OH and Florence, KY and to Jake’s Cigar Bar in Lexington, KY. All but Jake’s responded. Both Strauss and Blaze reported that after COVID they noticed a major shift from completely 50+ crowds to a lot more younger people (30 and under) coming in. While I was at Straus, a younger gentleman we will call DS came in. DS is 25-years-old, and I asked him why he smokes. His answer, “ I grew up with no one smoking or drinking except for my grandfather who smoked cigarettes. The first time I tried it, I did it to look cool; but now, I do it to relax and calm down. Smoking for me is being able to sit down with my phone and be relaxed, to talk with friends and to hang out or go to a lounge and have conversations with people I’ve never met before. So do I think cigars are going anywhere? I don’t think so. I too have seen a shift in the cigar industry where 20-30 year old’s are discovering the hobby, and I’m glad to see it!
Let me know if you have seen a shift at the lounges where you attend in the comments below! Life brings us many questions, but I’m fond of saying, the answer is always To Cigar
Logan Huddleston
Hello, my name is Logan Huddleston. I own and operate To Cigar, which provides cigar and alcohol content on all major social media platforms. My goal is to connect with and engage other GenZers to help them fall in love with cigars and cigar culture. I do reviews, memes, recipes, pairings, pretty much anything that connects with my audience. Most nights, I can be found with a cigar in one hand and a good drink in the other. Life brings us many questions, but I’m fond of saying, the answer is always To Cigar!