North Idaho Man is Cigar Purveyor to Area Courses

They know it isn’t politically correct, but a fair number of men puff stogies on the golf course, and Ken Smitheman is the North Idaho guy who panders to their weakness for the weed. Smitheman is the owner of Bulldog Pipe & Cigar Co. in Coeur d’Alene’s Silver Lake Mall. He supplies cigars to The Highlands, The Links, Prairie Falls, the Coeur d’Alene Public and the Circling Raven courses. So why would otherwise tobacco-free guys puff on the fairways? After seven years in the business, the 61-year-old Vietnam vet and retired Microsoft employee is pretty sure he knows the answers: “It’s a socializing thing,” he says. “They taste good and it’s what guys do. Furthermore, smoking is more or less acceptable in the out-of-doors – and there are a lot of husbands whose wives won’t let them smoke at home.” He claims he’s not one of the latter, explaining he has a room in his home where he smokes an occasional cigar, and he reserves his golfing smokes for after a game. The habit is pretty much confined to men, he says, estimating that only 2 to 3 percent of his female customers smoke cigars, “and I suspect many of them say they’re buying for their husbands.” Smitheman claims we’re living in a “golden age” for cigar smokers, and he credits actors Chuck Norris and Jim Belushi for lighting the fires for the current generation of stogie smokers. “They have a manly image. I think there’s some emulation going on.” Smitheman says there are 24 cigar manufacturers these days, twice as many as were rolling them in the ‘80s. The tobacco that comprises the filler in those that he sells is grown in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras. And some of the binder – the leaves that hold the rest of the cigar together – comes from Africa. The best wrapper tobacco, he says, is shade-grown in Connecticut. Connecticut? Not Virginia? Yep. Virginia tobacco, he explains, is what’s inside cigarettes. So far, he hasn’t sold domestically produced cigars, explaining that the U.S. product is machine-made, not hand-rolled as are the brands he’s been selling. And, the binders for machine-made cigars are made of cardboard. However, in response to customer demand, he plans to stock some domestic cigars, but only in his shop, not on the golf courses. Smitheman loans humidors to the courses and stocks them personally whenever their supplies run low. His most popular brands are those sold by the Fuente Co. which is headquartered in the Dominican Republic. They cost from $3 to $37, and that firm’s Quorum cigar is the most popular at $3. The biggest sales volume, he says, is at Prairie Falls and the Links. However, his high-end products leap off the shelves at Circling Raven for $8 to $30. Another mainstay of his business is pipes – some 350 a year — which he sells only in his store. So, if you want to talk tobacco and get a little education on the plant, drop into the Silver Lake Mall, or give Smitheman a call at 208-762-4333.