Cigar Smoking Etiquette

The gilded age was a time of beautiful and functional designs. Fifty-six years after this cigar tray was designed, women were doing their best to relegate the smoking of cigars to areas in which they approved, and the worried Cigar Institute of America had undertaken a campaign to placate the ladies. “It patriotically denies that a cigar stinks up clothing or a living room-smoke ring for smoke ring -any more than cigarets. But it gives these etiquette tips to cigar smokers who want to keep the little woman happy.”

Men Smoking More Cigars in Spite of Gals’ Protests

NEW YORK. (AP) - The cigar is sending up smoke signals of prosperity - amid some feminine cries of complaint. Last year 15,500,000 smokers in the United States did away with about 6,500,000,000 cigars. This June almost 430,000,000 cigars were released to the trade, 11 percent more than a year ago. But these figures bring small cheer to many women who persist in the strange delusion that a man who smokes cigars probably also takes opium and eats small children on the half shell.

Why? The cigar is as American as the hotdog. Since Christopher Columbus in 1492 saw his first native contentedly puffing away on a stogie, the cigar has enabled the poor man to feel like a king – and the king to feel as much at ease as the commoner. Yet the cigar smoker today is the victim of a widespread female conspiracy against him. If he lights up his Colorado Claro in an airplane, the stewardess flutters up like an angry butterfly. “Cigaret smoking only!” she says, ferrying away the offending hunk of weed. And the airline never refunds either the cigar or the price of a new one.

You stoke up in a friend’s house and what often happens? His wife throws open the windows, ties back the curtains, turns the fan on you and sits glaring with a baleful eye until you rub out the poor old cigar. My own wife for some years now has been trying to get me to join the C.A.A. - Cigar Addicts Anonymous. It does no good for me to remind her that she thinks Clark Gable packs terrific he-man glamour, and Gable smokes cigars.
“If you are going to try to compare yourself with Clark Gable,”says Frances, “let's start from scratch.”

Nor does it influence wives to point out that the Duke of Windsor, who did give up a kingdom for love, didn't forsake the fragrance of a good Havana. Why bother to cite other famous cigar lovers Winston Churchill or American Presidents like Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge Theodore Roosevelt?

Wives just don't care. Can you calm their ire by reminding them that the American public rewarded Gen. Ulysses S. Grant with 11,000 cigars for capturing Fort Donelson? No, you can't. Remembering what happened to the fine old lost art of tobacco chewing, the worried Cigar Institute of America has undertaken a campaign to placate the ladies.

It patriotically denies that a cigar stinks up clothing or a living room-smoke ring for smoke ring -any more than cigarets. But it gives these etiquette tips to cigar smokers who want to keep the little woman happy:

• Look before you flick - for an ash on the tray is worth two on the vest. 
• Puff a good cigar gently. Laying a smoke screen may easily turn the puff that pleases into the cloud that chokes.
• Please no butts. A collection of unsightly butts parked promiscuously around the house will antagonize the most angelic wife.
• Don't chew the cigar or talk with a Perfecto clamped in the mouth. Cut the cigar with a sharp blade; don't bite off and spit out the end. And light it with a match that has burned off the sulphur. It helps keep the aroma.

There you are, men. Now light up - and watch your wife’s face beam in tender pride and understanding. To keep her happy there is one more thing you can do. Swallow the smoke. – By Hal Boyle, 1948

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Early 20th C. Smoking Etiquette

Was this advice from 1864 the impetus for smoking jackets? “A host who asks you to smoke, will generally offer you an old coat for the purpose.” —The Addams Family character “Gomez Addams’” in his smoking jacket. -Photo source, Pinterest

A gentleman may smoke in the presence of ladies—especially in the presence of those who smoke themselves—but a gentleman should not smoke under the following circumstances:

When walking on the street with a lady.

When lifting his hat or bowing.

In a room, an office, or an elevator, when a lady enters.

In any short conversation where he is standing near, or talking with a lady.

If he is seated himself for a conversation with a lady on a veranda, in an hotel, in a private house, anywhere where “smoking is permitted,” he first asks, “Do you mind if I smoke?” And if she replies, “Not at all” or “Do, by all means,” it is then proper for him to do so. He should, however, take his cigar, pipe, or cigarette, out of his mouth while he is speaking. One who is very adroit can say a word or two without an unpleasant grimace, but one should not talk with one's mouth either full of food or barricaded with tobacco.

In the country, a gentleman may walk with a lady and smoke at the same time— especially a pipe or cigarette. Why a cigar is less admissible is hard to determine, unless a pipe somehow belongs to the country. A gentleman in golf or country clothes with a pipe in his mouth and a dog at his heels suggests a picture fitting to the scene; while a cigar seems as out of place as a cutaway coat. A pipe on the street in a city, on the other hand, is less appropriate than a cigar in the country. In any event he will, of course, ask his companion's permission to smoke.– From Emily Post's 1922, “Etiquette”

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia