Summer ANS 2017
Dear cigarfriends,
Before I will write about what happened last weekend I will explain a little about the background of the ANS meetings.
ANS stands for Apotheke Notdienst Smoke. Andreas Hohe is Pharmacist and every 13th day he has a 24h shift. Since he is a passionate cigar smoker, he uses that day to smoke a cigar in the back of the pharmacy in the old Laboratory (which is no longer in use) together with cigar smoking friends to kill the time of that 24h shift.
Next to that tradition came the bigger ANS-meetings, cause every time the 13th day is on a Friday, more friends from all over attend this event! Rooms get booked at the nearby Café Fritz and if needed also in surrounding places. These Friday ANS meetings resulted in big events were easily 50 and more friends show up!
Every year in august when the 13th day falls on a Friday, the big Summer-ANS takes place, where even more global friends come and visit the event! From UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Swiss, Austria and many other countries, people come and smoke, drink, eat, talk and laugh! The best thing of this all, there is no membership needed, no fees paid, just bring yourself and join the good fun. Mostly this weekend is also shared with the local cigar-club called “CCC”, who on their turn have an club-event on the next Saturday, so all in all a weekend filled with good fun, lots of camaraderie, good cigars, drinks and food!
Now that the background has been sorted, I can tell about how the Summer ANS 2017 weekend has been…
It started off Friday August 11th where we arrived at 13:00h at Schloß Vollrads for a nice good lunch, were we, Irene and Thomas teamed up with Jan, Lili, Pedro, Nino, John, Christian, Jorg. Christoph, Andreas and Daniel… Drinks and food got ordered while exchanging and smoking some fine cigars.
After the lunch we took the car-ferry in Rüdesheim to the other side of the Rhine river in Bingen to drive to the little town of Wörrstadt where the Famous Pharmacy of Andreas Hohe is.
We collected our keys for the room we booked at Cafe Fritz…
Then we went to Andy’s Irish pub for a drink or two until it was time to go to the pharmacy… The pharmacist welcomed us all and the party started good. As always our great host took care of us with nice sandwiches filled with “mett”, “leberkase” and “Kassler”. After that the table got filled with lots of other food, like Fleischwurst and a lot of Dutch cheeses, to accompany the good cigars and drinks! Approx. there were around 50 guests this night, coming from all over Europe, from Scotland to Bulgaria, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Many hours and drinks later me (Dutch) and John (Scottish) left as the last guests at 05:15h to have a little nap, till we had to attend to the breakfast that Nino booked at Café Emrich.
We woke up at 09:30h and it was of course a very short night for me, so I needed a good hot shower and a few aspirin before we made it to Café Emrich where we met all other suspects that where invited by Nino. After a good breakfast accompanied by a morning cigar, the whole group split up.
Nino and John went to Salih Dalay’s LCDH in Saarbrucken with Christian and Jorg. Jan went shopping with Lili in Wiesbaden. Irene, Pedro, Koenraad and me went “Weinkaufen”! The first place was Weingut Weinmann (Winner of the world’s best Riesling 3rd price) There we scored a good few boxes of Riesling and Chardonnay, also a few bottles of great White Merlot.
After that visit we decided to have a little siesta, cause our heads clearly needed some recovery of the ANS night! At around 14:30h we went for a good coffee at the Italian ice shop across the street and then off to Weingut Böhm for another wine-tasting and sampling where we also bought some great wines and specialties.
At around 17:00h it was time to go back to Andy’s Irish Pub to meet up with the rest and smoke, drink and eat! We had loads of fun there with good music and even Andy the Pub-owner sat at our table and partied with us together. All in all a nice relaxed day and me and Irene went back to our room to go sleep on time!
Sunday morning it was time to go to the Mommenheim Golfplatz for a nice “Bayerisch” Brunch arranged by Andreas for the people who stayed the weekend! After a good brunch and cigars it was time for me and Irene to travel home. It took us about 4,5h to get home and at 17:00h we offloaded the car and stocked our purchased wines.
I can only speak for myself and Irene, but we can honestly say this weekend goes in the books as highly memorable and even EPIC is in place, each time more friendships are made and older ones get more tightened! And that because of all perfect care of Andreas, Nino and other people, that also attended the ANS and weekend. We have never met such a great and diverse group of people that all share the same passion, therefore we feel very blessed and welcome!
Cheers for now and specially for my Austrian friends: OIDA!!! 😉
Special thanks to Nino for helping with pictures and some editorial stuff.