The White House Cigars

From The IADC – Digital Cigar Magazine

The White House cigars

Posted on August 28, 2015

It’s been 20 years since the last cigar was smoked in the Green Room. Hillary Clinton is the one who banned tobacco in the White House in 1993. Nevertheless, cigars were part of a ritual practiced by American presidents for 150 years.

It used to be that cigars were part of the White House protocol. At the end of state dinners, women would go to the Red Room to smoke cigarettes while men would settle in the Green Room to drink liqueur paired with sotgies that the president himself would offer. The few American presidents who turned cigars into their best companions are probably upset at the turn of events but the smoke times are in fact over !

20 cigars per day

The man capable of competing with Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th US president (1869-1877), is not about to sit in the Oval Office chair. A Hero of the civil war, general Grant smoked about 20 cigars per day. Cigars are so much part of his war achievements that his admirers sent him thousands of them. In 1868, when he left to go fight, his official song was unbelievably A Smokin’ His Cigar. Once he was in the Oval Office, his enemies criticized him harshly for his costly habit. Tough, churchillian before Churchill even existed, the old soldiar responded that he drank his gin, smoked his cigars and wouldn’t change his habits for a bunch of small minded politicians.

Pancakes, cereals and cigars

The other cigar man in the White House was Calvin Coolidge, the 30th US president. Senator of the state of Massachusetts, Coolidge is elected in 1923. Taciturn, the cigar plays the role of a barometer for his interlocutors. The way he turns it between his fingers or takes it to his lips became a precious indicator for his collaborators who would be thrown off by the silences of this mysterious man.

Other times, other customs. Coolidge started the custom of offering cigars during the business breakfasts, which would start at 8 am sharp. Pancakes, ham, cereals and cigars from the president’s personal humidor would be served. The humidor only contained Habanos and mostly Coronas, which he chained smoked.

Jacky too

After this quite unique president, the White House had to wait a few decades before finding annother real cigar aficionado. In 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy settles into the oval office. Educated on cigar by his father, his preferences go to panatelas and petit coronas (H. Upmann is his favorite brand). A small revolution : sometimes, his wife Jackie smokes too. Never before had the White House had a smoking presidential couple !

The Kennedy years also mark a turn in the American history of cigars. In February 1962, the young president declares the full embargo with Cuba. Habanos thus become illegal on the US territory. But before signing the embargo into law, he is carefull to get a stash that he will use during the last months of his life. Not a fan of hypocrisy though, he doesn’t hide the fact that he keeps smoking Habanos.

The following presidents are less emblematic than Kennedy. Richard Nixon shares his cigars with other heads of states and carries on the tradition of the after dinner cigar, smoked in the company of men, in the Green Room. He is the last president to honor this protocol. Since his disgrace in 1974, this tradition has long been forgotten.

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