Well the Dead Ringers Cigar Club members recently begin our lazy version of a cigar tour, our jumping off point was the William Perry Cigar Lounge in Bridgton Maine.
At first glance, the building itself Looks cool; an old Large home built in 1874 and was the home of Maine’s Railroad Commission President, William F. Perry. The home was to become donated Later on by Clara Fogg to be the Original Bridgton Hospital from 1941 to 1964. The building was recently on a cable television show called Ghost Hunters because it is said to be haunted.
So that is the background of the building, but this isn’t “This Old House” so let’s get down to the cigars.
The William Perry Cigar Lounge was quaint and quirky, the selections extremely limited, I saw only 5 or 6 labels/brands and there were no “House Brands” to chose from. I saw a lot of empty boxes on display and the selections they did have, had a markup that was a tad bid out of whack, but not over the top compared to some places I have been. It’s the local cigar lounge that the locals can’t afford and from speaking to its owner no locals frequent.
The Lounge was very small, dirty and had practically no
ventilation, cloth seats so that when you sit in them you smell like whatever
the previous person was smoking, needless to say we did not partake of our
cigar selections inside, instead it was a nice fall afternoon so we sat outside
in a gazebo, and after a small conversation and a lighter mishap, we left the
lounge area completely and continued on to smoke our purchases elsewhere.
The 3 of us, Lord Whitey, Dapper Ken and Cigar Ash all selected from the Camacho label and each got a different strength, reviews to follow at a later date.
We leave with an overall feeling of sadness, the atmosphere was longing and the selection lack luster and the prices not that attractive, not to mention we purchase 3 cigars and all three were dried out and at least one cracked when it was cut, not a very good representation of what you would expect from a cigar lounge. It was as if they had no pride in their business or branding.
Now that being said we were told by the owner that they are in the process of moving a mile down the road to a 2nd floor of a building near the center of town, So maybe when they relocate we will re-visit the William Perry Cigar Lounge and we can only hope that they have improved in atmosphere and selections and their humidors, But for now this place isn’t even good enough for a thumbs down.
On to our next stop…
