My Favorite Cigar
Salvatore Calabrese • Bartender • Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2
To become a world-famous bartender it helps to start early. That’s what Salvatore “the Maestro” Calabrese did. He was 11 when he first worked behind a bar in Maiori, Italy. His career would eventually take him across the globe, opening many illustrious watering holes, creating renowned cocktails and earning a knighthood. His Savoy bar opened in Florence in April.
While working at the landmark Dukes Bar in London, he decided to expand the bar’s cigar selection, creating a large humidor including connoisseur-level smokes, some sourced from the 1920s and ’30s.
His favorite is the Hoyo Epicure No. 2, but he pairs various cigars with fine spirits matching the strength of a drink with that of the cigar and finding complementary tasting notes. On his boat in Italy in the afternoon, he might opt for a Cohiba Robusto with a Negroni. At midnight, it could be an Old Fashioned with a Ramon Allones.
As well as having served royalty, rock stars and presidents, Calabrese set the record for creating the world’s oldest cocktail, containing a 1770 liqueur, a 1788 Cognac, an 1860 Curaçao and bitters from the early 1900s. It sold for about $9,000. “Not bad for an Italian guy who came from a small village,” says the Maestro.
