Ladies and gentlemen, degenerates, wannabe connoisseurs. Solaire’s BRB lounge has unleashed the Solaire Davidoff Robusto Coleccion.
Only eight locations on this miserable, overrated planet are allowed these cigars. The Philippines made the list. In this economy. Count your blessings.
Four-hundred six whiskies, 152 cigars. You walk in and immediately understand: If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re in trouble.
The cigars? Marvels of arrogance. A foot left unfinished. Who needs closure when you’re rich?
Boxes of three, six, twelve. Cru Robusto, Nicaragua Robusto, Winston Churchill Late Hour.
Collectors buy them. The rest of you stare. “Why is he doing that?” Because he can, OK? That’s why.
You walk in, and instantly forget the world exists. P98 gas? Somebody asks if it’ll delay the whiskey shipment. Children starving? Hilarious. You have your smoke. You have your whiskey. Delicious.
“Straight or V?” “Light or complex?” You imagine them insisting on lighting the cigar with fire from a meteorite that passed by Saturn. Only in this lounge.
Some insist the straight cut is pure. Classic. A mark of discipline.
Others swear by the V. It liberates the draw, teases the senses, elevates the trance.
Both are correct. But only if you can afford the arrogance to care. Which, let’s face it, you probably can’t.
The cut shows the world that while everyone divides pork into ever smaller slices to survive the next day, you debate the geometry in tobacco leaves.
You chew the first puff of your Robusto, and realize that the world might be ending outside these walls and it wouldn’t touch you.
Puff again, 45 minutes left, and let the smoke curl into your personal orbit. The lounge exists solely to protect the absurdity of this act.
Crisis, it seems, is a seasoning. Privilege is a smoke ring. Beautiful, ephemeral. Visible only to those who can afford the view.
We taste it differently depending on which side of the smoke we sit.
A P1,000 cigar elsewhere? P1,300 here. P2,500? P2,800. The extra is the audacity tax. The exquisite, unshakable conviction that you have insulated yourself from necessity.
Outside, office workers labor 12 hours for wages that wouldn’t cover a single box in that lounge.
Happiness is proportional to detachment. The rich do not hoard wealth as they hoard time, but use it to perfect the art of ignoring suffering.
This lounge is a fortress. A palace. A monument to being better than everyone else. And, if anyone tells you otherwise, well, they’re not even invited.