Smokin' Aces

The restroom at the bar was one the cleanest I've seen, for obvious reasons.

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Now I'm thirteen, smokin' blunts, makin' cream
-Notorious B.I.G., Respect

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I had plans, y'know?

Drive down to the Austrian border with my boys, Stabbs and Cowboy, and check out the Eagle's Nest. If you haven't seen Band of Brothers, the Eagle's Nest was the Nazi Party's present for Hitler on his 50th birthday. To get to Hitler's lodge atop of Mt. Kehlstein, visitors enter a tunnel dug out of the mountain and ride an elevator up. The view's supposed to be spectular--the Eagle's Nest overlooks a range of mountain peaks and lakes in the Alps.

But you make plans, wake up early on a weekend morning, pack your day-bag, walk out the barracks door, and see sheets of rain coming down. Overnight, the mild Bavarian summer becomes a storm that's forecast to stay wet and chilly through the weekend.

Our plans shot, we resort to doing what millions of other Americans did: we watched Spiderman 3 and bitched about how much of a letdown it was. Except, we're cavalry scouts stationed in Germany, and to catch a Hollywood blockbuster on opening weekend here, you gotta ride almost an hour to the city and pay 8 euro ($11). We felt entitled to movie genius, and instead, we got something a little less bad than Snakes on a Plane.

Since we were in town anyway, we roamed the streets until we were so hungry that we agreed to go to a bar + grill named California. We passed up on it at first, figuring we should be hitting joints serving German dishes instead of those with poor imitations of American food.

I started off with a mojito--which I'd been craving all week and couldn't make for myself because the commissary/grocer on post doesn't sell mint leaves--then ordered some pasta dish that was expensive and bland, but who really cares when it's 1721 and they haven't eaten all day? What rescued the meal was the Cohiba. I'd seen a picture of a cigar on the menu, so after the waitress took our orders (which for me, means pointing to a random line written in German that reads vaguely like English and praying that it isn't actually man-sausage), I flipped to the page with the cigar, and motioned with my fingers while asking, "'Schuldigung, Kann ich habe eine zigarren?"

She nodded and disappeared. Two seconds later, a waiter in a vest showed up with a cigar menu. We scanned the list for some Cuban cigars, and my friends got Montecristos. "Cohiba, robusto," I said.

The waiter came back with our cigars, wooden matchsticks, ashtrays, and a guillotine-style cutter. Cowboy had never smoked a cigar before, so Stabbs advised him: "You wanna cut on the closed end, about a quarter of an inch from the tip. You gotta light it like this. Blow on the end and keep rotating the cigar until the whole end is lit. Put that end in your mouth. Puff, like you're kissing the cigar. Pull the smoke in your mouth but don't inhale it. Keep it in your mouth until you can taste it. Then you can let it out. Yeah. How's it taste, man?"

"Like coffee beans," Cowboy said. "Only lighter. This is kinda nice."

"Better be nice," I said. "Cost me 20 euro ($27) for this one."

Then he coughed, "Fuck, swallowed some."

We laughed, and spent the next hour puffing away.

I'm not a cigar aficionado. I don't have a smoking jacket or a humidor. I just wanted to try a Cohiba because it's Fidel Castro's personal brand. For decades, the Cohiba brand was available only to Castro, the highest members of the Cuban communist party, and of course, personal guests and visiting foreign dignitaries. In the 80's, he opened the brand up to the rest of the world, and for a premium price, everyone could enjoy the same cigars that the dictator of Cuba did.

Cuba produces the best cigars in the world because of its tradition, expert rollers, and the exquisite tropical climate required to consistently produce the top-quality tobacco needed for fine cigars--in fact, like fine wines, premium cigars are known for both their label and vintage. The leaves are cured and fermented for up to 5 years before they're even rolled, and connoisseurs further age finished cigars in their humidors for months before smoking them. If Cubans are cigar nobility, then the Cohiba is king.

My robusto's taste was subtle, woody, with a hint of roasted coffee beans. And it got better, more complex and spicier the longer I smoked it. The Cohiba didn't produce as much smoke as the Montecristos did, and it's smell was wonderful. I was so relaxed with the alcohol and tobacco, I didn't care that my plans for the Eagle's Nest was shot on account of the torrential rain, or that plan B with Spiderman was equally disappointing. And even though the Cohiba cost more than my meal and drinks, it was well worth the price.

We stop by a tobacco shop on the way back onto post, and I bought 2 Cohibas and 2 Montecristos. I don't make very much, and in due time, I will bleed for my money, but what's the sense of working hard if you never get to play?