Stogies--or Cigars--Are in a Comeback : Tobacco: Demand is so high, some tobacconists can’t keep popular brands in stock. Today’s connoisseurs shun cheap brands of yesteryear. Many spend as high as $20 apiece for premium, hand-rolled smokes.

Just when the cigar industry seemed in ashes, the stogie is once again on a roll.

Long associated with dim back rooms and the gangsters, poker players and old-boy politicians who found sanctuary there, the cigar has caught fire with a whole new generation of baby boomers and twentysomethings.

Demand is so high, some tobacconists can’t keep popular brands in stock.

“We have more stuff on back order than we do in the store,” grumbled Dan Wilkinson, owner of Tobacco House Ltd. in Richmond, the heart of tobacco country. He says he’s seeing younger shoppers every week.

Today’s connoisseurs don’t puff the cheap, smelly, old-fogey 5-cent stogies of yesteryear. Many shell out from $1.50 to $20 apiece for premium, hand-rolled smokes.

Doug Heye, 22, newly graduated from the University of North Carolina, limits himself to two $3 Hoyo Excaliburs each week. That should change once he starts working.

“I’ll have the money to buy a nice humidor,” he said happily.

Industry observers say many younger smokers are attracted to the cigar’s mystique.

“Traditionally the cigar has been looked upon as a symbol of success, relaxation and achievement,” said Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Assn. of America in Washington. “It has a lot of romanticism about it.”

At its current pace, this year’s cigar sales should top 1993 sales by 6%, the first annual increase since 1970, Sharp said. Americans spent $720 million on cigars in 1993.

Sharp said the turnaround has been helped by Cigar Aficionado, a glossy upscale quarterly devoted to premium cigars. The magazine, which debuted two years ago and has a circulation of 185,000, includes a column answering such pressing queries as how to eliminate stogie breath.

The magazine also sponsors Cigar Nights, when fanciers pay $100 or more to don black tie, sip cognac, savor a five-course meal and sample premium cigars, usually donated by a manufacturer.

Cigar dinners have caught on at restaurants, clubs and hotels around the country.

Cigars “have layers of flavor, just as coffee and wine do. They complete the dining experience,” said David Everett, executive chef of The Dining Room at Ford’s Colony in Williamsburg and sponsor of four recent cigar dinners.

Anti-smoking activists, however, see nothing elegant about the cigar’s resurgence.

“Smoking is harmful,” said Tolson Brooks, a spokesman for the American Heart Assn. in Richmond. “Perhaps with cigars the risk is a little less, but how much less I couldn’t tell you and I don’t think anyone else could.”

The fad may be fueled by its popularity among celebrities. In addition to long-time smokers like George Burns and Bill Cosby, a younger crop of puffers and chompers includes Whoopi Goldberg, Sylvester Stallone, Ted Danson, Patrick Swayze, Johnny Depp and Matt Dillon.

Even Bill Clinton wrote Cigar Aficionado publisher Marvin Shanken a congratulatory letter when the magazine was launched, said Niki Singer, the magazine’s senior vice president.

But as with many men whose wives object to the stink, the president lives in a nonsmoking household.