Welcome to EDGEMONT BEER & CIGARS
We carry a huge selection of Domestic, Craft (Micro Brews) and Imported beers. Count on us for all your party Kegs.
We have a wide selection of fine cigars stored in our custom designed Humidor. Our Cigar Smoking Lounge is now open. We provide free WiFi access in the lounge.
Please check out our Events page for all our Beer and Cigar Sampling events.
Octoberfest and Pumpkin Ale beers have arrived.
MICRO BEERS Micro or craft breweries have adopted a different marketing strategy than large, mass-market breweries, offering products that compete on the basis of quality and diversity, instead of low price and advertising. Their influence has been much greater than their market share (which amounts to only 2% in the UK), indicated by the fact that large commercial breweries have introduced new brands intended to compete in the same market as microbrewery. When this strategy failed, they invested in microbreweries; or in many cases bought them outright.
In the early twentieth century, prohibition drove many breweries in the US into bankruptcy because they could not rely on selling "sacramental wine" as wineries of that era did. After several decades of consolidation of breweries, most American commercial beer was produced by a few very large corporations, resulting in a very uniform, mild-tasting lager, of which Budweiser and Miller are well-known examples. Consequently, some beer drinkers craving variety turned to homebrewing and eventually a few started doing so on a slightly larger scale. For inspiration, they turned to Britain, Germany, and Belgium, where a centuries-old tradition of artisan beer and cask ale production had never died out.
The popularity of these products was such that the trend quickly spread, and hundreds of small breweries sprang up, often attached to a bar (known as a "brewpub") where the product could be sold directly. As microbrews proliferated, some became more than microbrews, necessitating the definition of the broader category of craft beer - high quality beer. The largest American craft brewery is the Boston Beer Company, makers of Samual Adams. Portland, Oregon is very well known for its microbrew proliferation. In 2008, Portland had 30 microbreweries located within the city limits, more than any city in the world and greater than one-third of the state total. With 46 microbrew outlets, Portland has more breweries and brewpubs per capita than any other city in the United States. Many have won nationwide and international acclaim.
American microbreweries typically distribute through a wholesaler in a traditional three-tier system, others act as their own distributor (wholesaler) and sell to retailers and/or directly to the consumer through a tap room, attached restaurant, or off-premise sales. Because alcohol control is left up to the states, there are many state-to-state differences in the laws.
Some of the popular Cigar brands we carry are as follows.
We proudly carry Arturo Fuente Opus X cigars.
Ashton, Arturo Fuente, Rocky Patel, Diamond Crown, Padron, Monte Cristo, Cohiba, AVO, San Cristobal, Gurkha, CAO, Don Pepin Garcia, Macanudo, Punch, Perdomo, Partagas, La flor Dominicana, H. Upmann, Romoe Y Julieta, Onyx, La Gloria Cubana
Please checkout our Cigars page for a complete listing of all the cigar brands we carry.
Explorer Christopher Columbus is generally credited with the introduction of tobacco to Europe. Two of Columbus's crewmen during his 1492 journey, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, are said to have encountered tobacco for the first time on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas, when natives presented them with dry leaves that spread a peculiar fragrance. Tobacco was widely diffused among all of the islands of the Caribbean and therefore they again encountered it in Cuba, where Columbus and his men had settled.
Around 1592, the Spanish galleon San Clemente brought 50 kilograms (110 lb) of tobacco seed to the Philippines over the Acapulco-Manila trade route. The seed was then distributed among the Roman Catholic missions, where the clerics found excellent climates and soils for growing high-quality tobacco on Philippine soil.
In the 19th century, cigar smoking was common, while cigarettes were still comparatively rare. In the early 20th century, Rudyard Kipling wrote his famous smoking poem, "The Betrothed". The cigar business was an important industry, and factories employed many people before mechanized manufacturing of cigars became practical.
Beginning in the 1860's when Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his Key West cigar business to the section of Tampa now known as Ybor City, opening his Principe de Gales (Prince of Wales) factory shortly after rival Flor de Sanchez & Haya opened its factory, that area became a major center for cigar manufacture.
In New York city, cigars were made by rollers working in their own homes. It was reported that as of 1883, cigars were being manufactured in 127 apartment houses in the City, employing 1,962 families and 7,924 individuals. A state statute banning the practice, passed late that year at the urging of trade unions on the basis that the practice supressed wages, was ruled unconsitutional less than 4 months later. The industry, which had relocated to Brooklyn and other places on Long Island while the law was in effect, then returned to the City.
As of 1905, there were 80,000 cigar-making operations in the US, most of them small, family-operated shops where cigars were rolled and sold immediately.
Many modern cigars, as a matter of prestige and quality, are still rolled by hand, most especially in Central America and Cuba as well as in chinchales found in virtually every sizable city in the US. Boxes of hand-rolled cigars bear the phrase totalmente a mano (totally by hand) or hecho a mano (made by hand).