The Cocktail Nation

American Demographics, July 1, 1998 by Marc Spiegler

Here are other examples of the cigar's growing popularity: often disdained for their pungent, room-clearing aroma, cigars are now even having perfumes named after them. The circulation of Cigar Aficionado magazine rose from 141,000 in 1994 to nearly 400,000 in 1996. Most major American cities now have several cigar clubs, havens where upscale smokers keep private humidors stocked and entertain business partners. Between 1993 to 1997, reported a recent National Cancer Institute study, the number of U.S. cigar smokers rose by nearly 50 percent.

The biggest growth area? Precisely those titanic cigars that pop up most in movie-star mouths. Consumption of large cigars increased 66 percent between 1993 and 1997, to an estimated 3.55 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). What we're seeing is the wholesale reversal of a nearly three-decade trend. Sales of premium cigars, generally imported from the Caribbean, spiked an estimated 154 percent between 1993 and 1996, probably thanks to upper-income smokers who have strongly embraced the trend. The increase followed almost three decades of annual declines in the consumption of large cigars.

"Smoking a cigar makes you look successful," explains Chicago painter Dzine, 27, who says he first acquired a taste for cigars three years ago while visiting Miami. The availability of "Cubans" makes the town a stogie-lover's mecca. "I started smoking cigars instead of cigarettes, because I felt like it did much less damage to my health."

There's a long historical precedent for this attitude. U.S. cigar sales rose steadily for about a decade after the Surgeon General first warned that cigarettes damaged the health of smokers.

The popularity of Chicago's steakhouses may have ebbed and flowed over the years, but the best of them have always been packed with hungry carnivores. The current resurgence has been touched off by two related trends. First would be the Rat Pack factor, whereby the present touchstone for all things hip seems to be Las Vegas 1961. What better way to progress from that icy-cold see-through to that long roll of Cuban leaf than with a steak big and bloody enough to do Frank proud? -NewCity alternative weekly, April 1998

Nothing symbolizes traditional American cuisine quite like a juicy steak, richly marbled with fat and served beside a heaping mass of mashed potatoes. Unfortunately for cattlemen, many Americans see that very platter as a one-way ticket toward angioplasty. Open most magazines that offer health tips and you'll inevitably come across the suggestion to cut back on beef, substituting lighter meats such as chicken and fish in its place.

Many people seem to be following that dietary injunction. Overall per-capita meat consumptionincreased 9 percent between 1970 and 1995, to 192.5 pounds, according to the USDA. But the types of meat we eat are changing. Poultry consumption almost doubled over the period, to 62.9 pounds per person in 1995. Red meat declined by almost 13 percent, but Americans still eat plenty of it, at 114.7 pounds per person. Echoing those data, a 1997 Wirthlin Worldwide poll showed that more than half of U.S. men and almost three-fourths of women say they eat less red meat than two years before.