Key West cigar places?

Rhamlin

Going to be spending the day and night at The keys. I see there are a lot of shops on the Isle. Any recommendations? I'm particularly looking for a place that makes good fresh rolled. Preferably where I can watch the rolling artistry.

PaintSnipher

Was going to ask the same question in a week or two. I'm going to be down there for a week during Father's Day and going to see if anyone could point me in the right direction of a good dependable place to buy some cigars.

jlmarta

Rhamlin

Cigary

I love Key West...pretty hard to not walk around and run into a cigar place...just walk in and enjoy the ambiance and the rolling and choose a cigar from each place.

jlmarta

Nowadays it's cigars - when I was stationed there in 1954/55 it was all bars. Duval street is about 12 blocks long or so and there must have been 400 bars on Duval St. There were bars upstairs over bars, bars in the basement of other bars... Well, you get the picture. Of course, it was a Navy town.... Go figure.....

Rhamlin

jlmarta:

Nowadays it's cigars - when I was stationed there in 1954/55 it was all bars. Duval street is about 12 blocks long or so and there must have been 400 bars on Duval St. There were bars upstairs over bars, bars in the basement of other bars... Well, you get the picture. Of course, it was a Navy town.... Go figure.....

well we won't be doing any driving once we get there and our bed and breakfast is on Duvall so I plan on smoking and drinking??

Jetmech_63

I've been to Key West more times than I can count, the most recent being 3 months ago. We have a permanent detachment on NAS Boca Chica and a smaller annex on Key West proper called Truman Annex. The cigar scene down there is hit and miss. From being down there so many times, my opinion only, is that entire Key is a tourist trap, especially the are you're staying at on Duvall street. Not a whole lot to do other than drink overpriced weak drinks. That's on the west end of Duvall, the east end is a heavily gay community with heavily gay bars. I digress, as for cigars the only place I usually went was Dominican Republic cigar shop and Island cigar shop. I stuck only with their rolled house blends(in varying wrappers) which were pretty good. If you want any other cigars, bring them yourself or else you'll be paying a drop dead ridiculous price for the normal big brand stuff. Big plus is you can smoke damn near anywhere on the island. While you're down there, look up and eat at the Hogfish Grill. It's a locals hole in the wall with amazing food, huge portions of fresh caught that day seafood and reasonably priced, it's been a word of mouth thing for the Navy guys that go down there and I reccommend t to everyone. The Key West Winery is pretty good as well if you're into sweetish fruit wines. Free tastings! If you want to go deep sea fishing, go down to charter boat row in the AFTERNOON, never the morning or book ahead. If a captain isn't booked that day and you hit them up in the afternoon they'll almost always take you out that same day at a deep discount(better to make some money than none type concept). Last of the old Navy tricks, if you want to rent a scooter, do it from a place called Moped Hospital. Ask them if they need any deliveries made(it's legit...key west is a diffrent kind of place) and if you make a delivery for them you'll usually get 25% off your bill. Enjoy Key West!

Rhamlin

Thanks for the heads up Vinny. I'm planning on taking a sack of smokes with me. Some very good ones and some that I can smoke while farting around but won't mind tossing if I got to.