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While many of our Founding Fathers were tobacco farmers, you don't hear much talk today about who smoked that premium tobacco! With Presidents Day being tomorrow, we thought it a good time to discuss the topic of past US Presidents and their premium tobacco use. It isn't uncommon to see foreign heads of state enjoy a cigar, but less so with modern US Presidents. We love the picture of President Obama sniffing a cigar, but he was a cigarette smoker.
Cigarettes have become the modern choice for tobacco consumption and the same is true of our Presidents (including President Obama). Many Presidents smoked their premium tobacco in a pipe - Presidents Ford and Reagan. However, many premium cigar smokers have become President. What follows is a chronological list of US Presidents who smoked premium tobacco:
#4 - James Madison
#7 - Andrew Jackson (his wife, Rachel, also smoked cigars but she died before he took office)
#10 - John Tyler
#12 - Zachary Taylor
#13 - Millard Fillmore
#14 - Franklin Pierce
#15 - James Buchanan
#17 - Andrew Johnson
#18 - Ulysses S. Grant
#19 - Rutherford B. Hayes
#21 - Chester A. Arthur
#23 - Benjamin Harrison
#25 - William McKinley
#26 - Theodore Roosevelt (Teddy)
#27 - William Howard Taft
#29 - Warren G. Harding (pipe)
#30 - Calvin Coolidge
#31 - Herbert Hoover
#32 - Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR, pipe)
#34 - Dwight D. Eisenhower (cigars and pipe)
#35 - John F. Kennedy (JFK)
#37 - Richard Nixon
#38 - Gerald R. Ford (pipe)
#40 - Ronald Reagan (pipe)
#42 - Bill Clinton
#43 - George W. Bush
*Jefferson Davis (not really a US President but the only President of the CSA)
The chronology is arranged according to the Library of Congress. Presidential premium tobacco use was compiled using several sources including CA, Holt's, and Tobacco Pipes.
