 SMOKE Cities: San Antonio Cigar Stroll (continued) 
Follow the Riverwalk’s cobblestone streets uptown a bit and you’ll discover one of the more unique hotels in the city. The Havana Riverwalk Inn, built in 1914, brings the vintage charm of old Cuba to this south Texas metropolis, with its turn-of-the-century European villa-style architecture that dominated hotels in pre-revolutionary Havana. The Arbor, a large, outdoor patio that overlooks the San Antonio River, with vintage patio furniture and ornate chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling, is a marvelous locale to have a drink, light up a cigar, and watch the sunset - not to mention one of the most popular settings in town for wedding receptions and rehearsal dinners. However, the true treasure of the Havana Riverwalk Inn for cigar smokers is in the basement: Club Cohiba, the hotel’s sumptuous cigar bar. Dim lighting from recessed ceiling lamps, big leather chairs, lots of wicker and hardwood, round marble tabletops, and ancient Cuban rum bottles and other island bric-a-brac lend the club its ambiance. The place has a homey, makeshift look, owing to the non-matching furniture and visible smoke-eating machines. The overall impression is relaxing indeed, with soft music - from Sting to Dylan to Hoobastank - piped in at a conversation-friendly level.
Club Cohiba offers the expected collection of cigar-friendly spirits - particularly bourbons and Scotches - as well as some specialty cocktails like the Cohiba Margarita (Herradura tequila, Cointreau, lime juice, and Grand Marnier) and the Cosmojito (Captain Morgan’s Parrot Bay rum, Mojito mix, and Cranberry juice). Smoking my Perdomo Exclusivo alongside a dram of Glenmorangie Port Wood Finish was a truly decadent experience. Of course, there’s always the picturesque outdoor Arbor for those who’ve become just too guilty about smoking inside. Make no mistake; Club Cohiba is quite accurately described as one of the great guilty pleasures of San Antonio. Club Cohiba, Havana Riverwalk Inn, 1015 Navarro, San Antonio, Texas, (866) 301-0521, Web: havanariverwalkinn.com. 
If you’re looking for more affluent digs, you want some distance from the busy downtown, and you’re looking for some good golf, you can’t do better then the Westin La Cantera Resort, one of San Antonio’s most luxurious hideaways. Even better, it provides a comfortable haven for cigar-puffing night owls. Steinheimer’s, on the resort’s lobby level, boasts not only a wood-paneled cigar room with the requisite leather chairs, television sets, and humidor full of cigar selections for those not packing their own, but friendly service from the well-stocked bar. Small-batch bourbon lovers, especially, will appreciate the lineup of top-shelf American spirits, including Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel, Baker’s, Booker’s, and Knob Creek, as well as an impressive array of single malt Scotches, Cognacs (there’s even a Remy Martin Louis XIII for $145 a shot), and ports. Myself, I opted for a glass of Woodford Reserve bourbon paired up with a Davidoff Robusto Real Especiale No. 7 - an expectedly excellent combination - while settling in for the last tense innings of a late-season Yankees-Red Sox game. The crowd at Steinheimer’s is largely affluent - a contingent of players from the Resort’s annual golf event, the Valero Texas Open, were unwinding from a day on the links the evening I stopped in - though the dress code is casual and the vibe is friendly and somewhat boisterous.
Steinheimer’s Lounge, Westin La Cantera Resort, 16641 La Cantera Parkway, San Antonio, Texas, (210) 558-6500, Web: westin.com/lacantera. 
About a 20-minute drive from San Antonio’s bustling downtown is the Huebner Oaks location of Club Humidor, an immaculately kept, spacious-yet-cozy outpost for cigar smokers, conveniently situated a short hop from La Cantera. Tiffany Rumbo has graciously agreed to meet with me to discuss the shop, her family, and the cigar culture of south Texas. She and Keith opened this first Club Humidor in 1997, operating independently of - but closely with - the Rumbo family’s Humidor stores (A second location, at the Alamo Quarry, sprung up within a year). A career in retail management helped ease her into the business that has become her passion as much as her husband’s, though the transition was not easy. “I started out as temporary help, and at first my husband didn’t like me being there,” she recalls. “It was a man’s world, and at the time the belief was I shouldn’t be involved.” That changed as Tiffany, in her words, “fell in love with the business - its glamour, its history, and the fact that it was a little forbidden.”
The husband-and-wife team has made Club Humidor, in both its locations, a smashing success. Tiffany maintains that business has gone up every month of every year since the store opened in the heady boom year of 1997, despite the softening of the premium cigar market since then. And while there is a fine selection of pipes, humidors, and other accessories, cigars are undeniably the core of their business. “If I could put all the accessories in one room and humidify the rest of the store, I would,” she says half-seriously. “It’s better to have a smaller restaurant that’s always full than a bigger restaurant that’s not.” Club Humidor offers around 800 cigar selections, some of which rotate year-round based on availability, time of year, and consumer tastes. One thing seems to be constant, however: Tiffany’s Texan customers like their cigars big and strong. “I’ve had a lot of cigar company reps tell me that Texas is a ‘maduro region,’” she says. “More full-bodied cigars sell here than they do up north. I guess it’s a ‘good ol’ boy’ thing.” The store has a private label brand (the manufacturer who makes it is a closely guarded secret); 56 humidified lockers for customers (the Quarry location has 48); and a VIP membership program that offers patrons a 10 percent discount on purchases and a chance to attend an annual VIP dinner that is often attended by cigar business luminaries (This year’s event will feature an exclusive cigar from Davidoff). A former military brat in a military town (San Antonio is home to five bases), Tiffany is also proudly involved in “Operation: Sticks for Soldiers,” a program where cigar manufacturers donate smokes to overseas military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the extra effort involved in such a project, she and Keith bring genuine enthusiasm to the task - similar to the passion that makes their business a labor of love. “It’s never been about how many stores you have or how much money you can make,” she says. “It’s about being involved in your passion. If [Keith and I] had a little general store out in the Hill Country that sold cigars, we’d still be happy.” Club Humidor, Huebner Oaks, 11745 W. IH 10 #140, San Antonio, Texas, (210) 558-7700; Club Humidor, Quarry Market, 255 East Basse Road #546, San Antonio, Texas, (210) 828-1261. 
The drive north and east from San Antonio to Texas’s sprawling Hill Country is leisurely and picturesque, past acres of farms and ranchland where cattle graze, horses trot, and life in general seems to slow down. And while not technically that general store of Tiffany’s hypothetical world, the Tobacco Haus in the quaint, German-immigrant-settled Hill Country village of New Braunfels is close enough. Lisa Schraub founded her neighborhood shop in March 1996 with her partner, Weston Pacharzina (and the helpful advice of the ever-present Colonel Rumbo). The cigar boom helped it swiftly establish itself, but the local population around 30,000 didn’t provide enough customers to sustain the business. Fortunately, Lisa has managed to tap into a much larger market. “I do a lot of shipping to Dallas and Houston,” she reveals. Many houses out here are owned by people from Houston, and they’d rather deal with me than someone in the big city. I also get people who commute between San Antonio and Austin. And when tourists come out here [to Hill Country], they tend to come back.”
Part of the reason for Tobacco Haus’s widespread, loyal clientele is the intimate way it does business. “I know almost everybody who walks in the door by name,” Lisa states, “and I know what they smoke. My employees tease me because I don’t put anything into a computer. I can walk into the humidor and notice that a certain cigar box is missing and realize, Hey, Mr. Smith must have been in.” Tobacco Haus is welcoming to customers, with a living-room-style area in the front of the store where visitors can sit around a table and play cards or chess while puffing cigars. Regulars can even bring in their own drinks, as Lisa offers up the store’s refrigerator to chill six-packs. The 250-square-foot walk-in humidor offers about 150 cigar brands, and according to Lisa, “about 85 percent of my business.” Accessories and other non-tobacco items, like the “How to Speak Texan” novelty t-shirts hanging in the window, only seem to sell well around the holidays. “I wouldn’t even carry lighters if I didn’t have to,” she admits, “but it’s like having a bicycle shop without pedals. Some things it’s just important to have.” She carries some estate pipes, though most of the ones that sell are under $100. Like many other shops in Texas and elsewhere, her cigar patrons are mostly well educated, though there are the inevitable exceptions. “I still have people coming in and asking, ‘What’s the most expensive one you’ve got?’’ she says. Sometimes ladies will come in and say, ‘Last year, you picked out a perfect cigar for my husband; could you do that again?’ Then there are the people who ask me, ‘How many times can you re-light a cigar?’ I always tell them, if you’re re-lighting it so much, you’re not doing it right. To smoke a cigar, you need an hour, a deck, a glass of wine, and a sunset.” Fortunately, in south Texas, particularly San Antonio, if you know where to look, you can find all four in abundance. Tobacco Haus, 180 West San Antonio, New Braunfels, Texas, (888) 624-7473, Web: tobaccohaus.com. SMOKE - Winter, 2004/2005   |