Last Gasp

A few months ago, I smoked my last Nat Sherman. For all I know, it was the last Nat Sherman. I had been holding onto it for too long: it tasted bitter and sharp, nothing like the rich, chocolatey cigarettes that I had stashed in my basement desk nearly four years ago. But I smoked it all the way down to the filter anyway. It is hard to let go of a good thing, even when the good is only a memory.

I knew it would end this way. When Altria announced in the summer of 2020 that it was dumping Nat Sherman—the “pandemic created new challenges that were unfortunately too big to overcome,” a spokesman said—I systematically cleaned out the stock of every tobacco store in Northern Virginia. The guys behind the counters frowned at me; they knew what I was doing. But I couldn’t help myself. I had this idea that by stacking away these cigarettes I could steal back some time that would otherwise be lost. I was saving the past from the future.

Of course that’s not how time actually works. The reality is often the reverse. In the first few months after I built my hoard, I promised myself that I would only smoke the Shermans on special occasions: Christmas, Easter, birthdays. And, for a while, that was a pleasurable game. Every time I took the pack out, it was a conversation piece—Where did you find those? You have how many in your basement?—and I was always happy to share with whomever happened to be around. Sharing was half the reason for buying up all those smokes: I felt like a one-man Yale Club, which during Prohibition had been one of the few institutions prudent enough to lay away sufficient supply until times got better.

But as the months lengthened into years, it became clear to me that times never would improve. Shortly after Altria discontinued Nat Sherman, the company’s former executives bought out its cigar and pipe tobacco brands, now available under a new name at most good smoke shops. (The deal was closed on January 6, 2021, news of which was overshadowed by other events on that day.) But the cigarette line, which was what most people came to Nat Sherman for anyway, remained mothballed in some corporate shed down in Richmond. And so it will stay. There is little hope for the revival of a cigarette once it has been taken off the market: federal regulation makes it too expensive, too complicated, too time-consuming.

As for my stash? There was a solid year when I did not smoke a single cigarette. It was too painful—and I don’t mean emotionally. Everyone knows that if you keep cigarettes in a cool, dark place they can last for a good long while. (Most everyone has that elderly relative who stores an ancient pack of Kools in her garage freezer.) But this method only works for so long. First my Shermans became stale, then brittle, and, finally, so harsh that the smell of the smoke alone was vomit-inducing. Finishing them off was no longer a pleasurable game, but a dangerous one.

I have found that ever since I smoked my last Sherman, I have not wanted another. In fact, I have not bought cigarettes of any sort, and I’ve hardly smoked at all, except when social grace has required it. To tell the truth, I have fallen out of love with tobacco. I know it seems silly to speak this way about a consumer product, but I’m just glad the stakes of my disenchantment were so low. Oftentimes, those who hold on for too long experience much worse: a son clings to his mother and smothers himself, spouses claw into each other and tear their marriage apart—I only discovered that cigarettes are not shelf stable.

And, as with so many other things, that last Sherman was a memento mori. I thought that by keeping some old smokes cool and dry I could insulate myself from the ravages of time. But I only succeeded in the opposite: every drag of those Shermans was a pungent reminder of decay, until the last gasp of acrid exhaust dissolved into the air.