New York Cigars
I used to get into arguments with my brother all the time about how some things in New York are just better than they are anywhere else. This began with pizza. After I tried John’s in the Village, I was converted to a kind of mind-set that only New Yorkers are privy to: the idea that things in this city are better than other cities, and if they’re not, only the locals have the right to complain. He would argue that any city could get the same ingredients and the same ovens and make pizzas the exact same way, and you’d have the exact same pizza. I told him that his logic was entirely correct, and it sounded right, but it simply wasn’t. New York pizza is better in New York, and it’s better than anything else.
Some people claim that it’s the water, that the peculiarities of the water make the pizza taste like it does. There are plenty of other theories. New Yorkers have plenty of time for theories, even though they’re always too busy to do anything else. Hospitality is different here, too, and a luxury Manhattan hotel is better than anywhere else. We did invent it, hotels, and hospitality, or at least, we might as well have. The same thing can be said for cigars. It’s partly out of arrogance that I would claim they’re better here, but then again, it takes a certain amount of arrogance to smoke cigars these days. They are large, and they smell, and having one in public means that everyone in the vicinity is also having your cigar.
Things have changed in the past few years, however. It’s not easy to find a place where you can enjoy a good cigar. No self-respecting pizza joint, or hotel, would allow it. Because of this, people in New York smell much better than they used to, but we’re all infinitely unhappier. Of course, there are always ways of making things happen in this city, and if you know the right people, you can find everything. De La Concha still holds some of the finest cigar dinners in the city, and for what it’s worth, a Nicaraguan stogie does taste better when you’re sitting at a table with white linens, listening to other New Yorkers complain about how everything has changed. These things never change.
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