Cigar aficionados vie to create \\\'longest ash\\\'

Hundreds of cigar aficionados from around the world have taken part in an unusual competition in Cuba - a contest to see who can create the longest unbroken cone of cigar ash. The event is part of the week long Cigar Festival currently taking place in Havana. Many of the participants, foreigners as well as Cubans, finished with throbbing headaches but smiling faces, laughing and clapping Thursday as their smoked-down stogies were transformed into prodigious pillars of ash. Each smoker started out with a 17.8 centimeter (seven inch) H. Upmann label cigar, an esteemed Cuban brand. The challenge was to produce one intact ash that came as close as possible to the length of the cigar at the start of the competition, according to AFP.