Choice Places to Smoke a Cigar, III
It’s that time of year again when I recommend a few places to enjoy a cigar. Click here if you’d like to see my 2020 and 2022 selections.
St. Francis Yacht Club, San Francisco, CA. I’ll preface this with the following: StFYC is maybe my favorite place to be in all of America, so this isn’t objective; it’s pure feelings, a billet-doux to Northern California. This club is truly without equal. Where to start? I suppose with its million billion-dollar views. Sitting in the crosshairs of enviable latitude and longitudinal lines, a Mediterranean climate all but insures a sense of briny equanimity. The entire span of the Golden Gate Bridge is port side, Alcatraz is starboard, and in between is a choppy sea of nautical gaieties, from cockeyed sailboats to windsurfers to pelicans soaring about. On the other side of the bay are hilly peninsulas, coves, and a bulbous island — a citadel of geological beauty. Everyone at the club seems to be genuinely enjoying life. Smiles are bigger, fellowship is richer, and leisure is the impenitent entree. When I picture heaven in my mind, it’s Augusta National in the shadow of the Tetons (with the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in the men’s grill), a soundtrack scored by Ennio Morricone, endless 21 Club burgers, and views from the St. Francis Yacht Club. Oh, cigars taste better here too.
Burns Club, Atlanta, GA. Tucked away off a nondescript road in Atlanta sits the venerable Burns Club. The clubhouse is an exact replica of the ancestral home of Scottish poet, Robert Burns (1759–1796). Founded in 1896, the club has held a Burns Supper every year since 1898, and they are utterly amazing: sabers, kilts, poetry, bagpipes, whiskey, and haggis. I’ve smoked many cigars here and plan to for the rest of my life.
Uncle Ron’s House, Seattle, WA. Unfortunately, you have to be an Evans to puff away here. Uncle Ron and Aunt Karen retired to Puget Sound. The views from their place are breathtaking. In addition to the islands, ferry boats, and an occasional aircraft carrier passing by, the Olympic Mountains are in plain sight. I can sit on their balcony for hours, usually smoking but sometimes napping.
The photograph may look edited, but it’s not.
Club Macanudo, East 63rd St, New York, NY. What John Wayne is to Westerns, Club Macanudo is to cigars. Built by tobacconists with a sense of style, this dapper hideaway is an escape from the toing and froing of Manhattan. It’s one of those places where you find yourself lost in a cozy leather chair, your hamstrings, rear end, and entire back take a deep breath of air and blithely exhale, like they’re getting ready for a nap, and your eyes momentarily close, ever so gently, as your sympathetic nervous system whispers, "Aahhhhh...thank you." This club has that kind of effect. A friend of mine, who at the time was in grad school at Columbia, would take me here when I was in New York. As luck would have it, another friend would take me to the Friars Club on 55th for drinks and back here again for more cigars. For a while there, I was working on my own little hole in the ozone layer. In fact, the EPA sent me a cease-and-desist order. Okay, that’s bullshit, but you get my point. If you’re in New York and receive an invitation, take it.
St. Simons Island Pier, GA. On an island off the coast of Georgia, one that Travel + Leisure recently voted the number one island in the lower forty-eight, sits a pier where I smoke cigars and Dad fishes for redfish, flounder, and, though he hasn’t bagged one yet, shark. Jekyll Island is in front of you; the lighthouse, originally constructed in 1810 before Confederates tore it down to prevent it from aiding Union navy ships, is to your left; and the big orange ball drops westward beyond Sidney Lanier Bridge. I’ve seen a lot of beautiful sunsets during my travels, but nothing compares to those seen from the St. Simons Island pier. Catching the breeze off the sound with a cigar in hand while the Almighty swirls his paintbrush is as perfectly Southern as it is awe-inspiring.
