In 2017 I was downtown St. Louis for a fraternity banquet. I was going stag for the weekend, so during the 3-hour window between arrival at the hotel and our cocktail hour, I needed to occupy myself. At that age I was just beginning to enjoy the finer points of bachelorhood, so I sought an activity to match my newfound tastes and status. The first thing I looked for was a cigar shop. I found the Charles P. Stanley Cigar Company lounge just a few blocks away. I promptly donned my three-piece suit, which I was then in the habit of wearing, and began excitedly striding the sidewalks with expectations of a good smoke and some baronial conversation.
Naturally, I found both. I sat down on one of the empty leather chairs arranged around a coffee table. One to my left was occupied by a fellow wearing a Chicago Blackhawks shirt, and as that was my favorite hockey team, we immediately got along. Over the next two hours, other men joined in the conversation as the chairs filled up. Only two of our number knew one another from before that evening. Nobody felt out of place. No two of us were alike in age, race, religion, or occupation. And yet, we talked. We listened. We shared our experiences. We learned. I still remember a couple lessons from that conversation today. That’s the sort of conversation this blog is themed after. Our common ground was the cigar lounge and the cigar our common enjoyment.
There seems to be a significant value to cigar smoking today. I don’t consider that a controversial claim; the health detriments are more than outweighed by the social and spiritual benefits. I’m not the only one talking about this. There’s Dewayne from Dry Creek Wrangler School who recorded a video about the social benefits of smoking, dubbing this unspoken fraternity the “Brotherhood of the Leaf”. Matt Fradd opened his Chesterton Cigars shop in Steubenville, OH, directly related to the conversational theme of his show “Pints with Aquinas”. I came across another article here on Substack about smoking from Nelson R Elliot’s Techno-Canton. Elliot makes a good case for why cigar smoking is an easy way to build a real-life social space for men, but he doesn’t give much treatment to why cigar smoking is attractive for them in the first place. The latter question intrigues me more. Any “gentleman” or “masculinity” media seem to involve some sort of smoking imagery- my publication is no anomaly; Clubroom’s own icon is a pipe. I have a few ideas as to why smoking encapsulates the male psyche in our historical moment.
Smoking is popular among men for a few reasons. The first is simply that it’s popular among men. You don’t tend to see too many women lurking in a leather lounger at a cigar bar waiting for the next would-be interlocutor. Smoking rooms tend to remain a male space in an increasingly mixed culture. Men talking in a circle of men will share a sort of conversation they wouldn’t if women were present, naturally. Cigar smoking comes with a certain implication of masculine company. I realize this was probably part of my reasoning for heading to a cigar lounge as a bachelor in a big city. That environment was a safe bet that I’d find some interesting guys to talk about life with- and my bet paid off.
The second is that it gathers men together on a common, yet private plane. In a cigar lounge there almost guaranteed to be men who are part of that “Brotherhood of the Leaf” Dewayne mentioned. The lounge creates an environment of fellow-feeling where conversation is expected. Their choosing that environment and the common enjoyment of smoking gives them both an assurance that they will have *something* in common. Anyone may easily start the talk with one of those obvious somethings: cigars. A casual comment about the flavor of a maduro can unravel into a deep exchange on a topic such as the outward appearance of a man versus his inward moral quality. Whether the men are old friends or complete strangers, the wisps of Nicaraguan fumes hang in the air, cordoning off their sacred space of conversation.
The third is that it’s traditional. Not traditional in the sense of conservatism, but in the sense that the basics of cigar smoking, as the basics of conversation, have something immutable about them. Men have bonded over smoking for decades, even centuries. Sharing a cigar reminds us of past great talks, maybe even ones that we didn’t experience. GK Chesterton cites the popularity of talking over cigars in his 1910 essay, What’s Wrong with the World:
“When the working women in the poor districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their husbands home, simple-minded “social workers” always imagine that every husband is a tragic drunkard and every wife a broken-hearted saint. It never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over teacups.”
The smoker immediately joins a tradition the moment he lights up. When a group of men get together to smoke, the thoughts of past great fellow-smokers, of past ideas floating around in the cloud over the table give them as much comfort and assurance as the embrace of nicotine. In short, you sense that you’re partaking in something special, nearly sacred to men.
For these reasons the ritual of cigar smoking tends to attract the attentions of modern men looking for something classic and real in the strange landscape of modernity. Cigar smoking is ceremonial. Wherever two are gathered, there is the holy place. The chalice and the paten are exchanged for a cutter and a lighter. The cigar gives men an immediate common ground and ignites relaxed conversation that stands the chance of turning serious. The conversation is a sort of prayer. Let us embrace the sacrament of cigar smoking. It’s not all about the sticks- it's more about the talks. If it wasn’t for the cigars we shared in St Louis, I would have never met any of the men with whom I spent a short two hours discussing life. I wouldn’t have benefitted from the conversation. Nor would I have tasted the fine Romeo y Julieta which I remember smoking to this day. Invite some men you would like to talk with to smoke sometime soon!