Father’s Day Cigars: A Great Gift Idea
We hand them out during bachelor parties. We give them to new fathers. We hand them out to potential business partners and employees (”Sit down. Have a cigar.”).
It’s no wonder, then, that cigars are also a well-known father’s day gift. (For example, a Google search turns up 442,000 possibilities for “father’s day cigar.”) Cigars have that reputation - they’re the gift that you give someone to help him slow down, relax, savor the moment. They have the classiness, the gentlemanly appeal you want in a father’s day gift. And, digging deeper, they’re deeply historically rooted in ceremonies of generosity, well-wishing, and companionship. Ancient Native Americans living near the Pacific Northwest Coast observed, for example, a ceremony known as the potlatch, in which significant life events were observed by exchanging gifts and sharing wealth, which wealth often included tobacco. And, besides that, they’re the one gift idea you can be sure he’ll be glad to get - even if you’re not the only person to think of it. You can have too many bottles of cologne, you can have too many books (if you try really hard), you can have too many ties - but you can’t have too many high-quality premium cigars.
Cigars, then, already are a staple father’s day gift, unless you know already that your dear old dad hates to smoke stogies (in which case, why are you still reading?). For those of you new to the world of cigars, here are some basics:
1) Choose good cigars. (After all, he’s your dad!) Buy well-made, hand-rolled, long-filler cigars from a quality cigar outlet or online store. The better the cigar, the better the taste, and the more permanent the memories.
2) Speaking of cigar taste: the outer wrapper (which gives the cigar its outer color) generally tells you how the cigar tastes. Darker outer wrappers mean sweeter taste; tan- or lighter-colored cigars are drier.
3) If you’re ordering online, here’s some terminology. Double Claro cigars, also known as “American Market Selection” (AMS) or “Candela” wrapper cigars, are green and dry-tasting. Claro wrappers are light tan in color, also drier-tasting, while Colorado Claro, is medium brown and Colorado reddish. The next two gradations are Colorado Claro and Colorado Maduro. Maduros are darker and tend to taste fairly sweet. Recently Oscuro-wrapper cigars - entirely black and also sweetish - have appeared on the market again.
The choice is up to you. Chocolate stout and bitter ale are both delicious, if they’re well-made (and you’re buying premium cigars, right?), but they’re very distinct tastes.
3) How to smoke cigars (and, yes, if your dad’s never smoked one before he’ll need some pointers): Use a cigar cutter to cut off the cap of the cigar, then, using a wooden match or a Zippo lighter or other full flame (not a paper match, which will impart a chemical aftertaste to the cigar), turn the end of the cigar in the flame a full 360 degrees until every part of it is lit. Don’t inhale - this isn’t a cigarette! Pull the smoke into your mouth and taste it thoroughly without allowing it into your lungs. Remember, it’s about the taste.
4) Consider buying a sampler. Instead of getting a box of expensive cigars that, it turns out, aren’t exactly to dad’s taste, some of the better cigar stores allow you to choose your own sampler of high-quality cigars. Make sure you’re buying a premium-only sampler, as some online stores and mail-order-cigar-catalog companies make use of the following ploy: they advertise an “unbelievable deal” “super premium” cigar sampler (or some such name), complete with photographs of rows on rows of cigars, the front row of which is full of fine stogies - expensive hand-rolled cigars from Dominican Republic and other cigar capitals - but most of which is padded out with “cigar pawns,” off-brand cigars that cost the manufacturer under a dollar each and taste like it, and which you learn all about when that too-good-to-be-true sampler arrives and is full of cheapie cigars with one or two good ones mixed in. Generally, the best online cigar sampler stores will allow you to build your own premium sampler.
CigarFox provides you the opportunity to build your own sampler of the finest cigars that include cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo & Julieta, H Upmann, Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, Gurkha and many more. Choose from more than 1200 different cigars! Other cigar products include cigar humidors, cigar boxes, and cigar accessories like Zippo Lighters.
Weddings in Exotic Thailand, A Dream Coming True
The Kingdom of Thailand lies in the heart of Southeast Asia, making it a natural gateway to Indochina, Myanmar and Southern China. Its shape and geography divide into four natural regions; the mountains and forests of the North; the vast rice fields of the Central Plains; the semi-arid farm lands of the Northeast plateau; and the tropical islands and long coastline of the peninsula south.
Thailand constantly is winning awards for its tourism infrastructure, recently the Swedish travel publication, Travel News, presented the annual Grand Travel Award - the equivalent of the travel and tourism industry’s ‘Oscars’ - for the fifteenth consecutive year.
Thailand is increasing in popularity as a wedding destination as people seek more exotic environments and are able to hold more lavish receptions at luxury accommodation. There is nothing quite as touching as to play a part in someone’s wedding, and locations such as Koh Samui and Phuket offer stunning luxury villa rentals to accommodate such groups. Many villas are purposefully build to offer the best possible setting, secluded, romantic, and beautiful, surrounded by the deep blue ocean, and row after row of coconut palms.
Organizers can provide Christian, non-secular or Buddhist-style weddings, and each can be completely customized to ensure the most memorable day possible. Everything you need can you provided to make your wedding perfect, at only a fraction of the cost that you would pay in your home country. Nothing is quite as romantic as saying ‘I do’ on the beach, on a tropical island, under the shining sun and bright blue sky. You can share your special day with friends and loved ones or simply savor the moment just for yourselves. We can help make all your wedding dreams come true.
Luxury villas in Phuket and Samui can accommodate wedding parties of up to 85 people just within a villa, or they can cater for groups of up to 150 people if staying outside. If you are planning on having a large Koh Samui Wedding, please contact us in advance for more information about the special packages we offer.
Another advantage of having your wedding in Thailand is that the wedding and honeymoon are part of the same package. With hundreds of attractions throughout Thailand it is great opportunity to travel the country and to enjoy the time with family and friends.
Luxury villas catering to wedding groups are likely to expand into other areas of Thailand as infrastructure improves, Krabi is fast becoming the next fashionable destination for high end visitors and Koh Chang near the Cambodian border is also seeing a large increase in visitors who are more adventurous and want to experience different areas of the country.
Whatever destination a wedding couple chooses, they are sure to be offered great value for money and an amazing choice of Thai villas from any destination they choose. With the incredible diversity throughout Thailand guests are no doubt going to have the wedding of their dreams when staying in their luxury accommodation in the beautiful country of Thailand.
MyAsianVilla.com provides accommodation options in various locations around Thailand and features some of the most beautiful villas available.
Book your vacation today at www.myasianvilla.com
Cheap Beach Vacations Are Alive And Well
Would you love to go on a beach vacation with the family but can’t afford it? What you need is a cheap beach vacation package that allows you and your family to go on a beach holiday at a price you can afford.
There are ways to find cheap family beach vacations that allow you all to go on a holiday. Firstly there are a few tips you might find handy for finding a cheap beach holiday.
Go to a beach resort that is close to the popular beach resorts. There are plenty of beach resortst that are well known and popular, and expensive, beach resorts. I’m sure you could name one or two in the Carribean for instance. But there are more beach resorts in the Carribean than just the popular and well known ones, some equally as good, but less well known and so less expensive.
It makes sense. Price is a feature of supply and demand. Demand is high for the popular well known beach resorts, so prices are higher. They know that if you want to go to Aruba, for example, you’ll have to pay big time.
But just around the corner, or on another island close by, there may be a wonderful beach resort that is less well known and so more secluded, less crowded and cheaper to vacation at. Just that nobody knows about it.
And go just out of high season. I’m sure you’ve seen the big discounts offered once high season ends. So arrange your family holidays so that they don’t coincide with high season. It doesn’t really matter if the kids have a week or 2 off school. I’m sure you know about high and low season.
Less well known is this. Downtime. Any owner of a facility, say a hotel, at a beach resort, must maximise the number of rooms he has occupied at any time. All rooms occupied is ideal, any less than all is less than ideal. So there are always people looking to fill their rooms, at any price. Just like the airlines. They will fill seats at any price, within reason, rather than fly with seats unoccupied.
So if you know where to look you can find cheap airline tickets from airlines trying to fill empty seats.
The same with beach vacations. They will sell places at well below retail price to fill rooms. They won’t do it in the regular places like the travel agencies because it spoils their regular retail price business, but they will do it. If you know where to go to find the deals.
And there are stacks of other reasons why there are cheap beach holidays available at extremely low prices, even at the popular beach resorts. But you need to know where to look for them.
So if you’re looking for a cheap family beach vacation then do your homework. You don’t need to buy a beach vacation at full retail price. Be a savvy online shopper and buy a beach vacation that your family will remember for a long time, cheap.
For a website totally dedicated to Cheap Beach Vacations visit Peter’s Website Cheap Beach Vacations and find out about Cheap Myrtle Beach Vacations and more, including Florida Beach Vacations.
Kid’s Parties Favorite Foods: Make the Food Fun and Fabulous
If you are planning the menu for your child’s birthday party, the most important thing to remember is that most kids are very easy to please when it comes to traditional birthday fare. Your main objective is to make the food, fun!
Cake and ice cream is a given. If you have access to an ice cream maker, homemade ice cream is much preferred over even the most expensive store brand. Kids love participating. Make the ice cream base the night before and chill thoroughly. Kids can help layer the salt and ice cream and will be fascinated when the liquid ice cream base turns into ice cream. An electric ice cream maker takes about 45 minutes, so plan some activities or games in the mean time. Or start the ice cream at the beginning of the party.
If you’re using store bought ice cream, scoop out and place in cupcake paper liners and then re-freeze. It’s MUCH easier to serve this way. If you want to get fancy, use a small or miniature ice cream scoop, and then roll the scoops in shredded coconut, cocoa, chocolate sprinkles, miniature chocolate chips, crushed nuts then re-freeze.
You may want to stick with vanilla or at least offer vanilla as an alternative. Many children are allergic to chocolate or specific ingredients, found in other flavors.
The same goes with cake. if possible, homemade is best. You might choose to bake a small cake (to put candles in) and cupcakes for each of the guests. Cupcakes are much easier to serve, when dealing with a roomful of excited guests.
Another alternative is a huge cookie baked in a pizza pan and then decorated with Happy Birthday. Use refrigerated prepared cookie dough and place the slices touching each other so they merge together when baked. When the cookie is still hot from the oven place big gumdrops on the cake, one for every birthday year, and push into the cookie. The gumdrop will melt a bit and adhere to the cookie. You can then place a candle in each gumdrop and they won’t fall over.
Pizza is always a fairly safe bet when it comes to favorite foods for kid’s parties. It’s not overly messy and doesn’t have to be fancy to be good. Consider plain cheese pizza or two or three one item choices such as all pepperoni or all mushroom. Some kids are finicky when it comes to toppings if they’re all mixed together.
Most kids won’t turn down hot dogs or hamburgers: especially the mini version. Serve them with french fries and fruit salad, for a yummy combination.
Offer a variety of drinks, some of which should be unsweetened. Milk, bottled water and juice are much better choices than soda or lemonade.
Making the food fun is a great party idea for kids.
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Party Ideas for Kids Dee Power is the author of several nonfiction books including “The Making of a Bestseller and the Publishing Primer.” Her hobbies include cooking, gardening and fine jewelry.
