My first was in 95/96, from my brother after he moved to a "fancy" apartment, which is now one of those rundown low budget kind of places in a crummy part of town. (Can you say "foreshadowing"?
) I'm not sure the very first, but the selection at his place for a while was from Punch or Macanudo, the two best brands in the world according to him. Over the years I'd grab the occasional sticks from B&Ms. I'd do the usual, "Well, I haven't smoked a lot of cigars and I'm not sure what I like" game to which the staff would reply, "Well then 'Sir', you need the mildest, least interesting, and most overpriced cigar we can find". OK, they might not have used those exact words, but that's how I remember it now. A couple of years ago now I decided I was going to grab something on my own, I walked in to a local humidor and kept saying to myself "I'm a big boy, I'm a big boy, no need to ask for help, I'm a big boy". I grabbed a JdN Dark Corojo and instantly knew why guys buy more than 6-7 cigars per year! I felt like Mavin Johnson after finding his special purpose, and ran down the streets yelling, "I'm going to be doing this a LOT!!" OK, again, maybe not those exact words.