The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Coyote: The Return of American Style Cigars

About a decade before the 90's cigar boom in the United States, a new, inexpensive cigar debuted in stores around the country, sold under the brand "Backwoods," it quietly generated a lot of interest. Backwoods Cigar labels claimed a link to a lost time when men who wanted a cigar simply rolled their own. It was (and still is), a short, soft, rustic cigar with a bushy foot and a mild flavor. Backwoods Cigars quickly became a favorite with regular and occasional cigar smokers alike, and soon no fishing trip or poker night seemed complete without a few rumply Backwoods pouches in the mix.

Looked down upon by the premium cigar crowd, Backwoods actually represented an improvement in American mass-market cigar quality in that it offered an all-tobacco cigar at a time when most of the inexpensive brands had gone to homogenized wrappers and binders. Despite its looks and low price, Backwoods was a step-up that gave many Americans their first taste of a real "all natural tobacco" cigar.

Though I seriously doubt there was ever a time when the majority of Americans rolled their own cigars, Backwoods and its brethren do seem to have some claim on history, the Cigar History Museum describes something called the "American Cigar ... (Early 19th century term) Cigars made without binder from Virginia tobacco, thought to be sweeter and lighter than those made from Cuban tobacco or Cuban strains grown in the Northern US." Sounds American to me. Indeed, American tastes are often misunderstood as too bland, but America is all about quantity. This is the land of Big Gulps, 20 packs of beer, ultra-light cigarettes, and the "bottomless cup of coffee." Sure, we could drink stronger beer and knock back tiny cups of espresso, but then what would we consume the rest of the day? Americans are constantly in motion, constantly moving and driving and eating and drinking and smoking and etc. Who wants to smoke just one cigar a day? It's downright un-American.

Like a spaghetti western, these are truly American cigars - none of them are made here either, but in an odd way, they seem to catch the spirit of the place. They are also cousins to the stogie and cheroot, which like the American, are traditionally rolled without a binder - just wrapper and filler. According to Altadis, "Backwoods is the number one selling all natural cigar in the world," and that success has spawned a number of competitors.

How are they? I tried three brands. The original Backwoods is the smallest of the three (4 1/8 x 27), and tastes like a mild cigar should - mild, but not so mild as to be flavorless. One could easily (and happily) go through a pack of these a day.

Ugly Coyote cigars (available through Famous Smoke Shop), are a little larger (4 1/4 x 32) than Backwoods, and consisting of Honduran and Nicaraguan tobaccos, a little stronger as well, though still on the light side. They are a little sweet too.

Stonewood Cigars, from Good Times Tobacco, are also larger and could be a contender in this shootout if they didn't have a funny taste to them, like they picked up an unwanted flavor on the shop floor. (Have you ever bought an unwrapped cigar at a head shop? That's what they taste like.)

All three come in a variety of flavors, though for this post, I only reference the "Original" or unflavored varieties. They all, of course, have the signature "bushy foot," which people find to be either amusing, "manly," or irritating. I have mixed feelings on the subject, but when I don't want to fool with the foot, I simply clip it off with a cigar cutter.

So, which one wins this shootout? Stonewood is definitely "the Bad." Which leaves us, just like the movie, with the Good and the Ugly, and just like the movie, I think you'll enjoy them both.