You Can’t Have Just One

Knowing nothing about cigars made shopping for my friend Dan’s birthday present online a little intimidating. Most online merchants target the serious smoker, offering large boxes and bundles that ranged from $20 to more than $150.

But because Dan puffs only now and then, I needed fewer cigars. Not many sites, however, sold stogies individually.

At a co-worker’s suggestion, I searched for Punch cigars and began looking at https://www.cigarworld.com.

The site does not sell cigars, but it is a good resource for those--like me--who have not yet acquired a taste for them.

CigarWorld has details on a dozen brands, including a size chart that displays the length and girth of each cigar.

Of all the sites I visited, JR Cigars (https://www.jrcigars.com) offered the best deal: a box of eight Punch cigars for $22, plus a free box of another brand.

I thought about ending my search then and there. But Dan didn’t really need that many cigars, so I continued to look for a site that sold them individually.

Egars (https://www.egars.com) consisted mostly of boxes and bundles, but it offered smaller five-cigar packs as well. None of the smaller packs included Punch cigars, however.

I moved on to PaylessCigars (https://www.paylesscigars.com), which had some good deals, including an offer for a free two-pack of Punch cigars with another purchase. The smallest Punch box, however, included 25 cigars.

Although it is illegal to sell Cuban cigars in the United States, I wanted to see whether I could find any online. A Swiss cigar merchant sells two dozen Cuban brands online at https://www.cubancigars.com.

Of course, it is illegal to buy the cigars in the United States--even through the Internet--so the site wasn’t of much practical use.

The most obvious cigar site, https://www.cigar.com, offered box sets as well as individual cigars. The site included ratings from Cigar Aficionado magazine and helpful customer reviews, which steered me away from some poor buys.

Unfortunately, the Punch cigars I wanted, Cafe Royal, would not ship for seven to 21 days. Dan’s birthday was a little more than a week away.

As a last resort, I visited https://www.cigarsites.com, which offers links to dozens of cigar and cigar accessory merchants.

But the other sites I viewed didn’t sell individual cigars.

Without many other options, I returned to Cigar.com and purchased an assortment of individual Punch cigars that ranged from about $3 to $6 each.

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Times staff writer Christine Frey covers personal technology.