A recent financially necessitated downgrade in my cigarette purchase of preference, from Mayfair to Windsor Blue, set me pondering the issue of cigarette brand names, and their insistence on trying to appear posh. Windsor Blue, the lowliest of cigarette brands, actually manages to sound more upper-class than Mayfair, a cigarette for the slightly less down-at-heel. I may smoke Mayfair, whilst promenading with a cane down Mayfair, but I indulge in Windsor Blue inhalation when weekending in the company of the Queen, in Berkshire.
Because of this lack of apellatory transparency, it is impossible to judge a cigarette’s quality by its name. Any fool could ascertain, for example, that Kwik Save is (or was) likely to be a commoner food outlet than Sainsbury’s. Or that Cushelle is almost certainly going to be a chavier toilet paper than Andrex (the name of which I always took to be from a Greek root, but which is apparently a reference St. Andrew’s, the paper mill in Walthamstow which originally produced it. Huh.) But all cigarettes sound posh. Even ones that don’t, with a bit of marketing, can acquire connotations of aristocracy. Lambert and Butler, once the tramp’s smoke of choice, had an advertising campaign in the late 90s, portraying a fictitious Jeeves and Wooster-style pairing, with Lambert as a posh-but-thick fellow, and Butler as his...well, butler. One can imagine a similar set-up in the Benson and Hedges household, since, after all, who but a butler would be named Benson?
The ultimate poshos, the royal family seem to have more than their fair share of cigarette brands. Windsor Blue. Sovereign. Regal. Prince, a cigarette favoured in Scandinavia, and discovered by me in Greece, are presumably intended to be smoked by the prince of Denmark (an actual person, Wikipedia assures me), but I imagine he’s also related to our lot somehow. So my question is: “Just how many different kinds of fags does the Queen need?”
The answer to this is, as every smoker knows, at least two, and possibly three. One for everyday smoking, one for best (birthday, unexpected financial windfall, etc.), and one for on holiday. I, for example, smoke Marlboros when holidaying in Greece (naturally, with His Grace the Duke of Marlborough), but would not dream of such profligacy in England. Mostly because I’m not credit-worthy.
The subject of different cigarettes being appropriate for different occasions brings me on to another institution over-represented in the world of tobacco nomenclature. The diplomatic corps. After a minor mishap in the colonies, one can kick back in the consulate with a nice refreshing menthol Consulate. But if more tricky business finds one requiring the services of the embassy, nothing less than the ambassador, with a tray of Ferrero Rocher and twenty Embassies, will do.
English, vaguely posh, and olden-daysy-sounding cigarettes are plentiful. Mayfair, Dorchester, Berkeley, Richmond. Places you imagine you may have haunted in your previous-life incarnation as a 1920s moneyed-class layabout. However, hand-rolling tobacco presents a whole new world of bygone aristocracy. “Golden Virginia.” The golden days of Virginia. It conjures up imagines of the planter class elite, sipping mint juleps, prancing around in toilet roll cover dresses, and keeping the plantation stocked with mysteriously mixed-race children. “Cutter’s Choice” is perhaps worse. Are we supposed to imagine a cheerily discerning slave, the Man From Del Monte of the Old South, if you will, stopping for a moment in his craft as finest-tobacco-selector, in order to inspect a lovely fresh tobacco sprig, and thinking “Why, yes, I think I’ll save me this for a nice relaxing smoke later, as I settle down in my basic but homely cabin.”? And this is why roll-up smokers are clearly all racists.
America’s attitude to cigarette brand designation is delightfully conflicted. From an A to Z list, one can identify two major trends. Firstly, there are the brands which hark back to Old World gentility. While America may gleefully revel in explosives and corn oil-based snacks at the collective memory of having escaped our malevolent and tyrannical misrule every July the Fourth, they conversely have no qualms about remembering us with fond nostalgia where cigarettes are concerned. Albeit, to the English ear, with a slightly ill-informed amusingness. Ashford, presumably sounds delightfully rustic to its purchaser. Bristol, Chesterfield, and Parliament, are obviously nebulous enough concepts for the American mind to hold no preconceptions about their glamorousness, or lack thereof. But the prize for greatest Anglo-overkill must go to English Oval. I like to imagine it being smoked on the streets of Baltimore, or in a trailer park in Kentucky, while its consumers dream of languid, lazy summer afternoons watching cricket with a jug of Pimms. It is also nice to see that the Queen, on any foray she may make across the Atlantic, is as well catered for as she is at home, by Monarch cigarettes.
The second trend in fag naming in America is perhaps more predictable. For those in the US not secretly wishing they lived in Olde Englande, a plethora, nay an embarrassment, of brands can fulfil their slightly closety desire to appear as macho as possible. Ladies and gentlemen, we have... American Bison. American Harvest (produced by Truth and Liberty Manufacturing). Bull. Cheyenne. Commander. Desperado. Grand Prix. Kentucky’s Best. Lucky Strike. Maverick. McClintock. Midnight Special. Now. Pulse. Rave. Shield. Sundance. Wildhorse.
But my favourite American cigarette brand name? Smoker Friendly. This is what you need from your smoking material. A little empty reassurance, rather than the empty threats found on British cigarette packets. I’ve smoked for 19 years, and have perfect teeth. And, all things considered, inexplicably youthful skin. Warn me about my lovely pink lungs shrivelling, by all means, but do not try to tell me that smoking does things to me which it plainly is not doing. Because if I think you’re lying about these supposed consequences, I may begin to suspect the cancer stuff isn’t true either.
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