June Barton: Looking Back Through Smoke
Who doesn’t enjoy an evening of reminiscence over a burning cigar? Like a good meal paired with a fine cocktail, cigars and storytelling go hand in hand. They sustain the soul and give an evening a special glow. Going to a cigar bar is a great place to enjoy both, and at age 97 (and a half), cigar smoker June Barton of Merritt Island, Florida, has accrued more than her fair share of stories. Some of them even prominently feature a cigar.
Born in Boston in 1926, the nonagenarian has had a lifetime of adventure and is always happy to tell you all about it, from the time she jumped out of a plane in 1964 to meeting Julio Iglesias in Costa Rica right before his first American tour. You might hear one of these stories while Barton is having a cigar with a Michelob Ultra at her favorite cigar bar, Smoke Rings ’72 in Merritt Island, Florida. Or Barton might be sipping on a “Taratini,” a wine-based version of a Martini that she enjoys to sip. “A glass of wine and a good cigar,” she jokes, “and you’ll live to be as old as I am.”
Like many, Barton’s introduction to the world of cigars began via an older family member. When she was four years old, her father passed away and her grandfather stepped in to help fill the void. Together they would sit together while he smoked a cigar, and, as Barton recalled with fondness, sometimes would remove the cigar ring to place it on her finger and tell her how much he loved her. Even then, the youngster was enchanted by the cigars. “The smell of cigar smoke was just great,” she recalls. Her stepfather was also a cigar smoker and years after he and her mother divorced, she befriended him as an adult and would smoke cigars with him as well.
Decades later, cigars became more than simply a source of warm memories but also as a stepladder to enter a world that didn’t always welcome her: business. After years in real estate building and selling houses, Barton says she ultimately became a millionaire at the age of 39. After some adversity that reversed her fortunes, she regrouped and became one of the first, if not the very first, women to enter the world of franchising. June worked in various franchising sectors including Tiffany Marble, where she became international marketing director for factories that made cultured marble. “We’d sell the formula, the training and so forth to them.”
Of course, in the 1960s, the world of business was largely run by men and June’s presence was not readily welcomed. In those heady days, many business deals were made over a drink and a cigar and the audacious June was not to be left behind. “It was all men that worked franchise shows. Women were models but weren’t in sales at all,” she recalled. “So, to get friendly with the fellas, I started smoking cigars with them and having a beer. I have a very outgoing personality and… make a lot of friends very easily and so I won them over.”
In her interesting life, cigars have definitely played a great supporting role. Once at a franchising trade show held at a hotel at JFK Airport in New York, Barton was enjoying a cigar and drink and caught the eye of none other than The Man with No Name himself, Clint Eastwood, who was sitting with fellow actor Richard Burton. He approached her and invited her to join them.
While sitting on Eastwood's lap, June and the two actors spent the evening telling stories and jokes between puffs of her cigar. "Things just happen to me,” she says with a laugh. She believes that Burton was also smoking a cigar as well.
Another time, she went to Caesar’s Palace with a friend and tried playing craps for the first time ever, with the friend placing the bets. Between puffs of a cigar, she threw the dice (the first one missed the table and shot across the casino floor) but after that, her aim improved tremendously, and she says she pulled in quite the financial haul. Along with $40,000, she says, she also walked out with a few extra cigars in her pocket, courtesy of the casino. “They brought me over a whole big tray of beautiful cigars…I just picked a bunch of them.”
Cigars have certainly changed over her long life. In the old days, “when I was smoking cigars,” she says, “everything had to be Cuban… Now we get all kinds of varieties.”
Today she is happily retired and enjoying her golden years in Merritt Island, Florida. She has five children (two of them adopted), five grandchildren and one great-grandchild. After her retirement from franchising in the early 2000s, she took a break from smoking cigars, but returned to them last summer when her granddaughter Melody and a friend brought her to Smoke Rings ’72 where her passion was reignited. When smoking she prefers robusto sizes and her tastes run on the milder side, such as Perdomo Lot 23 Connecticut, along with smaller, boutique brands. When she’s not having a cigar and a Taratini or Michelob Ultra at Smoke Rings ‘72, she likes to have a cigar at home on her porch. She goes to the cigar bar about three times a month and loves the atmosphere.
“They treat me like an absolute queen,” she said of Smoke Rings ’72. “I go with my granddaughter and her friend and I have a lot of friends there that I have made. They gather around me and we talk and smoke cigars and have our beer and I just enjoy myself tremendously.”
“I’ve had a very interesting—and I might even add exciting—life,” Barton says. “I’ve almost enjoyed every minute of it.”
