Women, cigars, and the mating game.

Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America, reports that sales of cigars dropped steadily from 1973 to 1993. Starting in 1994, though, they surged from 3,400,000,000 to 4,400,000,000 in two years -- partly due to cigars' fast growing popularity among women. Sales of the high-priced handmade variety that females favor jumped nearly 65%, from 170,000,000 in 1995 to 280,000,000 in 1996.

Women made up just 0.1% of all cigar buyers in the U.S. in the mid 1980s. Today, they constitute as much as five percent of the market. "The industry never saw this coming," says Sharp, and he demand for premium cigars has driven much of the growth. "They are less than 10% of the cigars sold, but account for more than 40% of the retail dollars."

Allan Whitlatch, owner of Lone Star Cigars -- the largest cigar retailer in Dallas -- indicates that "We've seen a dramatic increase in women buying cigars. It seems that as women make advances in the corporate world -- which was male-dominated for so long -- they also experience more stress. They have more disposable income. Now, women seem to be less afraid of embracing typical male pastimes for relaxation, for instance, cigar smoking."

There even are cigar accessories especially for females. Cigar Savor Enterprises, which in 1996 debuted a device that stores a partially smoked cigar for...