Five sticks worth your evening, according to the house.

An evening has acts, and a cigar belongs to each of them differently. The house does not believe in a single best stick; it believes in the right stick at the right hour. These are the five slots in the house box this season, and what earns a place in each.

IThe Arrival

Something light to open the hand and the conversation — a Connecticut shade, cool and unhurried. It asks nothing of a first drink and offends no one's palate while the table is still finding itself.

IIThe Table Smoke

The workhorse of the night: a medium Nicaraguan with enough body to hold its own against a single malt and enough manners to last through dinner talk. This is the cigar the house hands a guest who asks, simply, for a good one.

IIIThe After-Dinner

When the plates clear, go darker. A maduro with coffee and cocoa in it, smoked slowly while the evening decides what it wants to become. Pair it with whatever the table is pouring neat.

IVThe Long One

Every good night has a cigar that measures it — a churchill you light when the real conversation starts and set down when it ends. Choose construction over novelty here; a long smoke that draws badly is worse than none.

VThe Closer

Small, strong, and final — a short full-bodied stick for the last word on the terrace. The house keeps these for the walk to the cars, when somebody says the thing everyone was thinking.

What to cellar: buy the table smokes by the box and rest them a season — they repay patience. What to bring to somebody else's table: the maduros, always. A guest who arrives with the after-dinner cigar has understood the assignment.

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