JFK's favorite cologne spray ($44)
"Caviar drama," discontinued cigarettes, and Julie Hecht.
Cigarettes
I got an e-mail asking for a “cool present for an 18 year old that is not your child.” One of life’s great pleasures is corrupting other people’s children, so I wrote back and suggested a pack of Nat Sherman’s multi-colored “Fantasia” cigarettes.
I remember being offered a Nat Sherman cigarette by a fellow n+1 intern whose mother dated a billionaire. (What can I say, that was the kind of thing people were known for in college.) She refused to smoke anything else. My understanding is she graduated from Columbia and became a soul cycle instructor, which, I suppose, is one way of doing things.
Thinking about cigarettes made me crave cigarettes, so I went to buy some for myself, only to learn that Nat Sherman cigarettes were a pandemic casualty, slowly faded out in 2020?! (The good people of Burn and Brew, a smoke shop in Arlington, Virginia, answered their phone on a Sunday morning to confirm that requests for Fantasia happen on a weekly basis.) If anyone can find a pack online, do let me know… Ebay was a bit of a bust.
I got my husband a pipe for Christmas last year. He smokes cigarettes, and I thought this would be nicer. I called up a lovely shop that sells, besides pipes and tobacco, JFK’s favorite cologne spray ($44):