Scotch and Cigars

Okay, so I know I said that the scotch-cigar combo is best left to the boys. But I couldn't pass up the invitation last week to attend the launch party for Glenlivet's newly released 15-year-old French Oak Reserve, which was hosted by the Club Macanudo, a restaurant and cigar lounge on the Upper East Side. I did pass up the Macanudo Vintage Cabinet Selection 1997 cigar (actually, I passed it off--to my husband). But I'll admit the scotch was pretty smooth, especially watered down a bit and sipped slowly (served straight up, or "neat," it was too strong for my sensitive feminine tastebuds to be smooth).
Note: Scotch connaisseurs (and master distillers like Jim Cryle from Glenlivet, who attended the launch) stress that there is no substitute for water--not even ice--if you want to maintain the quality of the whiskey. Apparently, adding ice in lieu of lukewarm water "kills" the flavor. There are several other rules too, I'm sure, about the type of glass and the temperature of the bottle, and so on. Fortunately, the Glenlivet folks took care of all that.
In addition to the box of hand-rolled cigars, Macanudo served up a three-course dinner. Victor and I were seated between a gossip columnist for the Daily News, writers for Golf Digest and Cigar Afficionado, and a "senior brand manager" from Glenlivet, who'd driven down from Connecticut. It was an interesting mix, like the meal, which consisted of Caesar salad, champagne salmon, and warm chocolate truffles infused with--what else?--single malt scotch. The servers called it "chocolate ecstasy," and it was.
But at that point, between the scotch and the wine and the cigar smoke, I was starting to feel a little overindulgent. So I stopped at two. And we gathered ourselves and our personalized party bags and stumbled to the subway.
Thanks to the generous gifts, we can host our own cigar-scotch pairing party now. Or, at least, we could have. Each gift bag contained a large bottle of the 15-year-old scotch and a small box of cigars--most of which, my husband and his friends finished off during their weekend trip.