Why I Stopped Rushing the Padron 1964

The Padron 1964 Anniversary is, in my view, the most quietly perfect cigar in regular production. It is also the cigar most often smoked badly.

I used to draw on it every twenty seconds, the way you would on a lesser smoke, and I would always burn through it in forty minutes wondering what the fuss was about. Then a friend in Estelí told me to put it down for thirty seconds between draws. Just sit with it. Let it rest in the ashtray.

The difference was the difference between hearing a song and listening to one. Cocoa, espresso, oak, and a long sweet finish that only appears when the leaf has time to cool between pulls.

The 1964 is a cigar that rewards stillness. So is most of life worth doing.

— Eric Schleien