Smoking In New York City
New York City is the home of Cigar Aficionado, and has been for the entire 33-year history of the magazine. We know the city well, and love it dearly. We work here and we smoke cigars here, and we understand the joy and the energy of this incredible metropolis.
This September, the city is celebrating its 400th birthday, based on the 1625 construction of Fort Amsterdam on land that is today known as Manhattan Island. Back then, it was known as New Amsterdam, part of the larger Dutch colony of New Netherland. It was battled over repeatedly, trading places between the Dutch and British before becoming a part of the United States about 250 years ago.
Today, New York is arguably the most famous place in the world, a city that teems with world-class restaurants, supports a vibrant arts scene and offers top-tier shopping. It’s a magnet to the entire world. Nearly 65 million people visited New York City last year, according to local government figures, the second-highest number of visitors in city history. They come to watch Broadway shows, to dine on remarkable cuisine and drink the world’s premier wines, to buy custom suits and to perhaps mingle with some of the most important people on the planet.
It’s also a city for cigar lovers, but enjoying a fine cigar here is harder today than it was in the past. New York has a longstanding reputation as a city where you can do anything you want at any time of day or night, but a crackdown on smoking initiated by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg squelched some of that old-fashioned freedom. If you visited New York many years ago, you might remember lighting up without restraint. We used to enjoy our cigars in the smoking section of restaurants and in virtually every bar, and there were cigar shops all over the city.
That’s no longer true. Nowadays, to do New York right as a cigar smoker you need a guide, and that’s where we come in.
New York still has premier places to enjoy a cigar, and within our pages we will point you to the very best. We will highlight where you can shop, show you where cigars are still rolled by hand in this city and even take you to a spot where you can listen to a live, old-fashioned, Las Vegas-style Frank Sinatra show while enjoying your favorite cigar and a superb cocktail.
That’s only one part of this issue, which also features our NFL forecast, a look at the changing format for the biggest payday in golf, a feature that takes you into the intriguing (and little known) world of American-made brandies and our ever-popular My Favorite Cigar, where we reveal the preferred smokes of intriguing personalities.
We hope this issue helps guide you on your next visit to New York City. When you come, take a close look around that cigar bar or shop. You just might see one of us (or one of our other editors) enjoying a cigar there as well.
