What's Up Doc?

The Moment of Truth You've read about cigars. You've learned about humidors. You may have even watched a doctor unbox one of the most beautiful lighters ever made. Now it's time to actually walk into a cigar lounge. And that — for most people — is where the anxiety kicks in. What do I order? How do I cut it without making a fool of myself? When do I tap the ash? Can I put it out halfway through? What are the unwritten rules that everyone else seems to already know? This is ex

There's a drink that sat on Winston Churchill's table every single day from 1945 until the day he died. It wasn't Scotch. It wasn't a fine Bordeaux. It was Armenian brandy — and the man who introduced it to him was Joseph Stalin. The Story At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the great powers were carving up the post-war world. After dinner one evening, Stalin asked Churchill if he'd like a drink. Churchill's answer was quintessentially Churchill: "I like a brandy with m

It started in a cold Yorkshire drawer in the 1980s. Five-year-old me, bored and restless on a rainy British afternoon, prising open a stuck mahogany cabinet in search of a treasure map. What I found instead were a handful of curious brown sticks wrapped in cellophane — my father's old cigars, remnants of a bachelor life I never knew. My mother shut that down immediately. My fascination, however, never quite went away. Then came the 80s and 90s. Bond, Hannibal Smith, Arnie, St