Monday, December 14 2009
By Neal Pendock (
Pendock Uncorked)
It's the stories behind the glass of wine that make it so interesting: cultural reliquary, style thermometer, whatever... Of course wine is not unqiue in having a past and a story to tell.
Cigars are in the same story-telling league as first growth claret as Stephen McGinty's
Churchill's Cigar (Pan Books, 2008) confirms.
Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky put the final nail in the coffin of the cigar as the ne plus ultra of smoking style. No wonder Mark Birley, founder of Annabel's, London's most fashionable nightclub, was told by the first class trolly dolly to extinguish his Cohiba as passengers in economy class were complaining. His reply was a first class classic: "I have not complained about the smell down there. Why should they complain about that up here?"
Churchill's Cigar continues here...
