Assembly stories
He had dreamt of this house, in the shade of the plane trees, as he strolled along the pier in the port of Key West. He would look into the distance and remember the Cuba of 1930, its houses bursting with colour, the washing hanging from the strings in the windows of the narrow streets, the restaurant tables spilling out onto the terraces. And so, a few years later, after many long and exhausting years as a journalist during the war, he fulfilled his dream and moved to a house not far from Havana.
As a master hedonist, he was keen to discover all pleasures, including his passion for cigars and his love of brown spirits. He liked to fill his lungs with sea air during his long hours of fishing during the day, only to return to the comfort of his living room in the evening.
"That evening, I was sitting in the living room, smoking a cigar, drinking watered-down whisky, listening to Gracie Allen sing on the radio. The kids had gone to the show and I was sitting there in this armchair, feeling sleepy and good.
Wherever he was, he observed a cigar ritual throughout the day. He would accompany his cigars with dishes selected to support the different aromas, strength and sublimate the flavours. His mornings began with a strong coffee and a minuto. He enjoyed his aperitifs with round, fat cigars to prepare his palate superbly. After his midday meal, which was always accompanied by a glass of 'house' red, he would carefully choose a cigar of great aromatic richness, which he liked to enjoy on the porch of his house, lulled by the stifling, enveloping heat of Cuba. In the afternoon, he liked his cigars mild and woody, which he would sublimate with a square of dark chocolate and a long cup of coffee. He liked to accompany his typically rich, generous and spicy Cuban meals with cigars marked by earthy notes and featuring an even burn and good length in the mouth. His favourite cigar after dinner was a rich, intense torpedo, accompanied by an old agricultural rum.
He exhausted his passion for cigars and combined them with every possible dish, carefully selecting his rum according to the cigar he was going to smoke - or the cigar according to the rum he was going to drink. He meticulously chose his coffees, the composition of his dishes; he was an explorer of taste, of flavours, of the combination of aromas. He spent a lifetime indulging in hedonism and enjoying the wonderful combinations of cigars and food.
Freely inspired by the life and passions of Ernest Hemingway
Blue Smoke Spirit dreamt of Hemingway
If we'd been lucky enough to invite Ernest Hemingway to a Blue Smoke event, we'd have shared with him a D8 Torro Box PressedWith a rather chocolaty stout beer.
We look forward to sharing our blends with you as we make our discoveries. They're all authentic, the result of a moment of sharing between Blue Smokers, a special moment, an explosion of flavours that touched us.
References
To have or not to have - 8 May 1973 by Ernest Hemingway (Author), Marcel Duhamel (Translation)
Islands adrift by Ernest Hemingway and Jean-René Major
L'express: Hemingway, portrait of a tragic man
France Culture: Hemingway and the experience of limits
