For many of us, casino gambling and cigar smoking go together like Frank and Bing Generations of first-time Vegas visitors have enhanced their experience via frequent applications of cigar smoke, just like those iconic Rat Packers of yesteryear with their impeccable suits, suave manner, and constantly-replenished supplies of alcohol and tobacco

The 1990s were the best of times—and the worst of times—for the premium cigar industry On the one hand, the previously near-moribund pastime suddenly experienced huge growth in profits, garnered new publicity, and racked up all sorts of hipness points as a stressed-out workforce turned to cigars for that little touch of luxury that makes a day complete

Downhill skiing requires a combination of athleticism, leisure, privilege, and the devil-may-care attitude that allows participants to enjoy the thrill of, essentially, falling down a steep snow-covered mountain, over and over again It's not a sport for the faint at heart

Camping—it's a brute necessity, and one of the most refined and civilized of pleasures Our remote ancestors would never have survived and evolved without the ability to build strong and protective shelters in the wild—the wiliness and courage to gather or track down their food—and, perhaps most of all, the resourcefulness to entertain themselves and each other in the infinitely long evenings before civilization

To cigar smokers, Nicaragua is already legendary Through regime change, social upheaval, and revolution, this Latin American nation has produced some of the world's finest tobacco

We all know about the important role that guns play in American recreation Consider such facts as the profusion of hunting magazines available on any newsstand; the huge number of duck blinds that can be seen in any woods; the fact that every town and hamlet has its driving range; the size and power of the NRA (National Rifle Association); or the wide availability of gun-safety classes to American youth

Boating is perhaps the most romantic of all sports, with its aura of long days on deck, of old sea salts' talk, of rope-related knowhow and words like "keelhaul" and "stern," its echoes of Melville and Popeye and of Robert Shaw's character in the movie Jaws ("I'll get the shark fer yeh, Chiefie

Those who know their cigars well also, by that same token, know Brazil—albeit as a source of great tobacco rather than as a top cigar-producing nation Brazilian tobacco, mainly produced in the country's temperate northeastern and southern regions, turns up in such world-class cigars as Carlos Torano's Toro, but the country's cigar producers themselves haven't always gotten the same respect

Those who love cigars know that Honduras is one of the world's best places to make them After all, this Latin American country has been a prime tobacco-growing location for centuries, and its cigar industry boomed again after 1959, when many longtime Cuban cigar makers fled the Castro regime for neighboring countries—including this one

Hunting is as old as humanity—older, in fact—and as new as the latest high-tech gear they're selling at your local sporting goods store Fossil evidence indicates that early humans were hunting with spears as long as 16,200 years ago, and scientists estimate that we've been eating meat much longer than that—for nearly two million years, a span of time that long predates the emergence of homo sapiens