Breuning was a lifelong cigar smoker, but said in an interview at age 110 that he quit in 1999, when he was 103, saying they had become too expensive. However, at the age of 108 he briefly started smoking again, encouraged by gifts of cigars from as far away as London. Breuning retained a sharp memory. For example, he could remember his grandfather talking about his experiences in the American Civil War when he was three years old, and remembered the day President William McKinley was shot as the day "I got my first haircut".