What Is a Herf? (And How to Start a Cigar Club)

Short answer: a herf is a gathering of cigar smokers. Two guys in a garage counts. So does a 400-person hotel ballroom. The word started as a verb — to herf was to draw on a cigar — and by 1997 cigar smokers online had turned it into the name for the get-together itself. That's the whole herf meaning, and it's the easiest door into cigar culture you'll ever find.

I went to my first one by accident. Walked into a lounge looking for a stick for the drive home, and there were nine guys in a circle around a folding table covered in cigars nobody had paid for. One of them handed me something and asked where I was from. I stayed three hours.

Where the word "herf" came from

Nobody planned this one. It leaked out of a message board.

The earliest written use anybody has found sits in the Usenet newsgroup alt.smokers.cigars, in a post dated November 21, 1996, from a poster going by "Prince of Skeeves." He wasn't talking about a party. He was complaining a cigar was rolled so tight it was "almost impossible to herf." Two days later he spelled it out: "To 'herf' is to draw on a cigar" (Barry Popik's citation files).

So it was a verb first. A mouth-motion word.

The same poster later said he'd picked it up in 1982 at a junior college in Clyde, Texas, from a friend named Stu, who used it for the ridiculous face you make pulling hard on something oversized. Where Stu got it, nobody knows — one theory links it to "huff," another to Vietnam-era slang for hauling a heavy load a long way (World Wide Words).

How a verb became a party

Here's the turn. In April 1997, guys from that same newsgroup organized "The Texas Herf On The Lake." Once a few dozen strangers drove to a lake to smoke together and called it a herf, the noun stuck and never came loose. Twenty-nine years later it's in every lounge in the country, and almost nobody saying it knows it started with a guy griping about a tight draw.

What actually happens at one

Less than you'd think. That's the appeal.

No agenda, no dues, no guest speaker. People sit down, light up, and talk for two or three hours. Holt's puts the typical headcount at "anywhere from a half dozen cigar-hungry revelers to 50 or more," and says one can happen anywhere smoking is allowed — a backyard tent, a basement, a garage with lawn chairs (Holt's Clubhouse).

The one real custom is the trading. Holt's calls it a "share and share alike" philosophy, and it's what separates a herf from four guys who happen to be smoking in the same room. You bring more than you'll smoke. You hand things to people. Somebody hands you something back.

By the end of the night you've smoked two cigars you'd never have bought. That's how most of us found our favorites.

Why this matters more than it used to

Serious for one paragraph, then I'll stop.

The Survey Center on American Life found the share of American men reporting no close friends at all went from 3% in 1990 to 15% in 2021. Over the same stretch, men saying they had six or more close friends fell from 55% to 27% (Survey Center on American Life, July 6, 2021). They called it a friendship recession. Sounds about right.

Grown men are bad at scheduling friendship. We'll drive four hours to a funeral and not call a guy we like for nine months. A herf hands you a reason — something on the calendar that isn't about feelings and takes exactly as long as a cigar. Nobody has to announce he's lonely. You just say "Thursday, 7, bring something good."

How to start a cigar club

You don't need a charter. You need three guys and a repeating date. Here's the order that works.

1. Start with three. Not twelve. Three means it still happens when one guy's kid has a game. Twelve means a month in a group chat and no meeting.
2. Pick a day and don't move it. Second Thursday. First Saturday. The date does the work, not your enthusiasm. "Whenever works" kills more clubs than anything else.
3. Find the spot. A lounge is easiest — there were 4,232 cigar lounge businesses in the U.S. in 2025, up 4.3% over 2024 (IBISWorld, 2026). Call ahead about a standing group. Most will clear a corner.
4. Or host it yourself. Garage, driveway, back patio. Outdoor beats indoor, because the smell is the whole negotiation with the house.
5. Say the bring-one rule out loud. Everybody brings two or three to pass. No money changes hands. It's the only rule worth repeating.
6. Name it. Feels dumb for a week, then it's a thing people are in. State and city names work — there's a whole cigar society collection built on exactly that, and a shirt makes a club real faster than a logo does.
7. Invite one new guy a quarter. Clubs that never add anybody turn into three men repeating four stories. Ask the guy you keep seeing at the lounge. He's waiting to be asked.

Hosting your first herf

Five things. None expensive.

• Seating that doesn't suck. Folding chairs end a night at 90 minutes. A cigar wants two hours in something you can lean back in.
• More ashtrays than guests. Nobody wants to lean across three people.
• Two cutters and a spare lighter. Somebody always forgets. Often me.
• Water, plus whatever else. Water isn't optional — your mouth dries out and you'll blame the cigar. If you're pouring, our cigar and bourbon pairing guide sorts the proof-to-strength question.
• Something mild in reserve for whoever's new. A full-bodied maduro as a first cigar is how you lose a recruit.

Skip the catering, the playlist, the theme. It's men in chairs. Over-planning is the only way to make it weird.

Herf etiquette, short version

Bring more than you smoke. Take what's offered even if it's not your usual. Don't review another man's cigar out loud unless he asks. Pay your own tab at a lounge and tip the guy behind the counter.

And if somebody shows up new and quiet, hand him something and ask where he's from. That's the whole job. Somebody did it for you.

The longer list is in our cigar lounge etiquette guide, and if the lounge is still new ground, what to expect your first visit covers it.

Frequently asked questions

What does herf mean?

A herf is a gathering of cigar smokers, from two guys in a garage to a few hundred at an annual event. It started as a verb meaning to draw on a cigar, first recorded on the Usenet newsgroup alt.smokers.cigars in November 1996, and became the word for the gathering itself by 1997.

Is "herf" a verb or a noun?

Both, and the verb came first. Originally you herfed a cigar — you drew on it. Today it's mostly a noun ("there's a herf Saturday"), but "we herfed all night" is still good English in a lounge.

How many people do you need for a herf?

Two. There's no minimum anybody enforces. A typical one runs from a half dozen people up to 50, and the big annual events draw hundreds — but a standing Thursday with three guys is a herf, and nobody will argue.

Do you bring your own cigars to a herf?

Yes — bring extras. The custom is share and share alike: you bring two or three beyond what you'll smoke, you pass them around, and people pass things back. Showing up empty-handed is the one thing that gets noticed.

How do I find a herf near me?

Ask at your local lounge — most have a regular night and the counter knows the schedule. Beyond that, check cigar forums and regional groups for your state. The brothers of the leaf aren't hard to find once you start asking.

What should I wear to a herf?

Whatever you'd wear to a long evening on a patio, and nothing you need back clean tomorrow — smoke clings. A cigar tee is a decent icebreaker. It tells the room what you're into before you open your mouth.

The bottom line

A herf is men in chairs with lit cigars. That's it. The word's been doing that job since 1997; the thing itself is much older than the word.

If you've been smoking alone on a patio for six years, you already have what you need to start one. Three guys. A repeating Thursday. Bring two to pass.

Text somebody today. Worst case he says no and you smoke alone, which is what you were doing anyway.

More of where this language comes from: the complete cigar slang glossary has the rest of the vocabulary, BOTL and SOTL explained covers the brotherhood side, and what is a stogie digs into the other word we use without knowing why.

— Skip, Owner, Legacy Layers