The interview at the Pittsfield Building ran a little over 90 minutes, from 9:30 a.m to just after 11. I didn't have to be at Siena Tavern for lunch until noon. That gave me almost an hour.
I walked a couple blocks south to Iwan Ries at 19 S. Wabash, on the second floor of the Adler & Sullivan-designed Jeweler's Building. Run by the fifth generation to own the company since its founding in 1857, Ries is the second oldest family-owned business in Chicago (the first being, surprisingly, Baird & Warner, founded in 1855).
Iwan Ries has a fancy BYOB cigar lounge, but that costs money to use. It also has a little side room with a few chairs and ashtrays. That was good enough for me to sit and relax and read the newspaper for 20 minutes. They didn't have my go-to smoke, a Rocky Patel 1990 Vintage toro, so I took the recommendation of the clerk, Harry, and tried the Rocky Patel Number Six, which was delightfully smooth, so much so I bought a second for another day. I'm a creature of habit, so it's good to have an occasional reminder that being forced out of your rut sometimes has advantages.
The place is exactly as it always was, and as I left, I told Harry that it was nice to come across something that hasn't been ruined yet.
"We never change," he said.
I walked a couple blocks south to Iwan Ries at 19 S. Wabash, on the second floor of the Adler & Sullivan-designed Jeweler's Building. Run by the fifth generation to own the company since its founding in 1857, Ries is the second oldest family-owned business in Chicago (the first being, surprisingly, Baird & Warner, founded in 1855).
Iwan Ries has a fancy BYOB cigar lounge, but that costs money to use. It also has a little side room with a few chairs and ashtrays. That was good enough for me to sit and relax and read the newspaper for 20 minutes. They didn't have my go-to smoke, a Rocky Patel 1990 Vintage toro, so I took the recommendation of the clerk, Harry, and tried the Rocky Patel Number Six, which was delightfully smooth, so much so I bought a second for another day. I'm a creature of habit, so it's good to have an occasional reminder that being forced out of your rut sometimes has advantages.
The place is exactly as it always was, and as I left, I told Harry that it was nice to come across something that hasn't been ruined yet.
"We never change," he said.
The title is line from the Rudyard Kipling poem, "The Betrothed."
I remember my roommate in my freshman year at Purdue, a guy from South Shore, taking me to Iwan Ries to buy a pipe and a pouch of Three Star Blue tobacco. That was 1967.
ReplyDelete"And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke."
ReplyDeleteFirst read that line maybe fifty years ago, in a piece about cigar smoking.
Never knew which Rudyard Kipling poem contained it. Have never seen it.
Until now.
Thanks, Mister S.
I have learned so much here.