Friday, July 23 2010
by Nick Foulkes | Newsweek online
They are called COSAS—an acronym for Comfortable Outdoor Smoking Area. And according to Jemma Freeman, the sixth-generation owner of the London-based Havana cigar importer Hunters & Frankau, “They are opening up in London at the rate of one a week.”
Havana may be the cradle of cigar making, but London is, arguably, the city where these golden-brown tubes of Cuban tobacco achieved their apotheosis as the gentleman’s postprandial pursuit. The bon vivant Edward VII ushered in a new era of pleasure after the death of his austere mother, Queen Victoria, with the memorable words, “Gentlemen, you may smoke.” A cigar was of course the constant companion of the greatest Englishman of the 20th century, Winston Churchill. And now it is Sir Terence Conran, the celebrated British designer, author, and restaurateur—seldom seen without a Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2—who wears the mantle of most famous living British cigar smoker. Story continues here
