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<\/p>\nRUSH: Irmo, South Carolina. John, you\u2019re next. It\u2019s great to have you, sir. Hi.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, I guess this makes me the most listened to radio talk show caller in America.<\/p>\n
RUSH: It does, indeed! (chuckling) Exactly right. This is your big showbiz break.<\/p>\n
CALLER: What an honor. Well, I\u2019ve been thinking about something, Rush. You talk about cigars from time to time.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019ve been a cigar smoker for 20-plus years. I\u2019m in my forties. I started as soon as I could, and I remember in the 1990s one of the biggest-ring-gauge cigars you could get was a Diamond Crown, and it was a whopping 54 ring gauge.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right. Wait just a second. Hey, we need to bring the audience in on this.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes, sir.<\/p>\n
RUSH: They may not know what ring gauge is. It\u2019s simply the circumference of the cigar.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Correct.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Centimeters is what we\u2019re talking about here, and that\u2019s the ring gauge. They call it ring gauge because it would be the equivalent of a ring size.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes, sir.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So it\u2019s the thickness of the cigar that we\u2019re talking about here, 54 is thick. That requires a pretty open mouth to smoke — and you\u2019re right. Back then, Diamond Crown, 54 ring gauge was pretty much it. But that\u2019s been exceeded a lot by now.<\/p>\n
CALLER: That\u2019s my point, that even if you look at articles — I was paying attention back then in the 2000s — the cigar industry called that cigar kind of a blip on the radar, that these large cigars will never hang around. Here we\u2019ve been through 2000, 2010 to today, and it went from 60 ring gauge to 70 ring gauge. (Unintelligible) almost 80 ring gauge. So, it\u2019s obviously not a blip in the industry. I\u2019m just wondering if you ever thought, one, do you smoke the ring-size gauge cigars, and what do you think is the trend? Why was it not a blip and why is it continuing to get bigger and not stabilize or go back to smaller size?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, the reason why… I remember when they thought it was just a blip is because it was so vastly outside the norm. I mean the standard ring gauge… Your average, ordinary cigar smoker, the standard ring gauge was anywhere between 32 to 47 — and 47, at one time, was considered jumbo. That\u2019s the size of a Churchill. You get in Double Corona size; you\u2019re looking at a 49 ring gauge. I happen to love big-ring-gauge cigars, because I love… I don\u2019t like these thin little things that make you feel like you\u2019re drinking soup. You know, if you\u2019re gonna smoke a cigar, smoke a cigar. You need to put it in your mouth and you need to be substantial. The bigger-ring gauge, the better.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I agree.<\/p>\n
RUSH: But they\u2019re really hard to make. They are extremely hard to make quality ones. You start rolling a cigar that thick, maintaining a proper draw and avoiding plugs, it takes somebody that really knows what they\u2019re doing. And I think that\u2019s why they thought that it was only gonna be a blip, because I don\u2019t think they thought at the time that they\u2019d be able to mass produce enough of \u2019em to satisfy the kind of demand that existed. But obviously that was incorrect. People like them.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I remember if you were smoking a 54 ring gauge cigar back in my days you kind of looked like an idiot. That was almost too big for the standard then. You really stood out and people kind of pointed at you.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, not for me, I have a big mouth, and so the big-ring gauge was not at all a foolish-looking thing.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/APP-042018-Rush-Cigar-Stone-Wall.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
CALLER: (chuckling)<\/p>\n
RUSH: But none of that matters! It shouldn\u2019t matter what you the look like or what other people think. Do you like them? Do you like big-ring gauge? You obviously do.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Asylum 80 ring gauge is one of my favorites right now.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, what size is that?<\/p>\n
CALLER: It\u2019s a 6-inch by 80 ring gauge.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Six-inch by… 80!<\/p>\n
CALLER: Eighty.<\/p>\n
RUSH: (chuckles) Well, then your mouth is wide open the whole time that cigar is in it. But it\u2019s a maximized way of getting the flavor out of the cigar. I think if you like it, stick with it. Don\u2019t worry what you look like or what other people think of it \u2019cause none of that matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: You know, if you're gonna smoke a cigar, smoke a cigar. You need to put it in your mouth and you need to be substantial. The bigger-ring gauge, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":271654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n