I promised a friend that I’d E-mail him a cigar primer course so I’ve put down on paper my thoughts and advice to new cigar smokes. So, in no particular order, here is what I usually try to share with people starting out. It is for your review, consideration and of course corrections, opinions and additions as needed. When I realized how long it had become I thought I'd share.
Forget about magazine ratings, price or what has the largest section on the wall as to what is good, its trial and error for each person.
Start out buying a few single cigars at a time and try not to go crazy filling humidors. General rule first year is don’t have more than you can smoke in a month or so, during the first year you’ll buy lots of bad cigars and your tastes will likely refine and change several times over. I ended up with dozens if not hundreds of cigars I no longer wanted to smoke after I found the ones I liked. Singles… one more time, buy Singles. The cigar your buddy or the shop keeper told you were great will still be there next week after you’ve smoked a SINGLE and know if you like it or not.
Don’t buy a box just because you liked a cigar, some cigars are good but just don’t hold your interest for long. I don’t know why this is, but I’ve smoked several cigars that were good enough to buy more of, but in the long run I didn’t want to keep going back to them again and again. Still like them, but always seem to want something else more than them now. A good single should trigger a few more or even a fiver, but not a box.
Don’t buy bargains, most of the cigars out there like Gurkha with high MSRP’s can be had cheap on deal all the time, High/Low marketing is a gimmick with several brands. Also, a cedar wrapped cheap cigar in a tube and fancy box is still a cheap cigar. It’s often easier to dress up a cigar than make it taste good.
Learn how to smoke a cigar, most people start out with poor technique that ruins the flavor and experience of even a very good cigar. First a cigar must be properly humidified and stored to be worth smoking, more on that later. Dozens of cigars I had written off as no good I went back and enjoyed as my techniques improved.
Cut as little off the tip as you need to get a good feeling pre light draw, for larger ring cigars a punch is a great way to start out. If you cut to much you can’t go back to tighten the draw and your wrapper may come apart. You can cut a little more if it’s too tight of draw and it’s bothering you.
When lighting a cigar use the correct tool, butane lighters with soft flames (like a BIC) are great to start with, high heat is the enemy of all cigars so those triple flame jet engine lighters may start your cigar off on the wrong foot (yes a pun) if used improperly. Zippo lighters with fluid have a nasty flavor don’t use them; same for paper matches and in general most matches unless made for cigar smokers. I have two goals with lighting a cigar, low heat and a solid even pattern of glowing “cherry”. I do not draw on a cigar that I am lighting while a flame is near the end, some do or do so only after “toasting the foot”. If you have a jet engine lighter you can use it but light your cigar with the heat off the flame not the flame, I point the flame straight up and hold the cigar at about 8 O’clock / 2 O’clock angle a full inch above the tip of the flame and roll the cigar in my finger tips to distribute the heat. After a few seconds it looks like the space shuttle coming into the atmosphere with a soft warm glow wrapping around the cigar foot. Don’t worry if you char the wrapper a bit; if it catches fire blow it out. Soft flame you can get closer, but still it should take at least 30 seconds to light a cigar and can take a minute on larger ring cigars. I tend to start around the edges and end up with a glowing donut shaped pattern from toasting and then blow on the foot a few times and have a good solid circle. It is important to have the cigar well lit to the edge and not just have a hot spot in the middle or around the edges. I don’t take my first puff until my cigar is fully lit and the cherry has softened in brightness a bit.
Slow Down when you smoke – One puff per minute is a good rule, or I say don’t take a puff if you can see any red in the ash at all, that includes going Puff, Puff, Puff, Puff. The flavor is in the smoke, you only need to fill your mouth with smoke, and you don’t get more flavors by speeding up, hold it in your mouth and savor it a bit. Slowing down also means to take slower puffs that do not heat up the cigar as much as faster ones, you’ll get more flavors. Try to watch the burning edge of the cigar for glowing red, and practice keeping the red as light as possible while you draw. By controlling the heat you can smoke cigars in stages using slightly higher heat at first to “wake” the cigar up and reduce heat to reduce bitterness as it goes. Understand the chemistry of cigar smoking, only low heat is needed to release the flavors and high heat will not only release more of the negative things in a cigar that make them bitter like ammonia, tar and nicotine, but also destroy some of the flavors. If a cigar is getting bitter “purge it” blow a few puffs out of it instead of in and then let it sit until the cherry softens again. If you have to relight, knock off all the ash and blow out several times, you can just light it while drawing with a soft flame or indirect heat, although you can do the toasting method if you perfer. This helps cut down on the bitterness of relighting a cigar.
Let the cigar burn out on its own when you are done, don’t smash them to put them out it just stinks up the place and isn’t needed.
Storing cigars- Until you know what you are doing, a Tupperware container (Tupador) with a Boveda humidity pack is cheap, easy and works well. Don’t run out to get a humidor to start off, if you don’t stay hooked on cigars you will not keep it up so it’s pointless and if you do stay hooked you’ll need a much bigger storage method than you think you need today. I ended up giving away my first two humidors because they were not what I needed.
Proper humidity is key to any cigar smoking well; not all cigars need the same humidity, but most are very close to each other. Forget about numbers and hygrometers to start with; understand what humidity does to a cigar and you will not need them. Tobacco will absorb the moisture in the air around it and expands and contracts like a sponge as it gets wet or dries out. If you cigar is too wet the filler tobacco will expand until it is very hard to draw air though the cigar, poor construction can also cause this, but chances are the cigar was OK when it left the maker. A cigar that is too dry may or may not have a loose draw, but will always burn too hot. You may notice the cherry of the cigar sticks out like a pointed cone instead of flat or you may notice the cherry never dies down even when you are not drawing from it. It will taste bitter and is more likely to “grab” the back of your throat. If you have cigars that are too wet or dry and you put them in your tupperdor it can take weeks for them to adjust so be patient. Give your cigars a light squeeze before you smoke them and in a short time you will know what a properly humidified cigar feel like. Know that some cigars are naturally packed with more tobacco than others, so there is a range of how firm a cigar should feel, but you’ll figure that out. One reason cheap cigars may burn hotter is a light fill to save on the cost of leaf that makes room for more air and a hotter burn. Don’t assume a large cigar is a value because it’s big and cheap; it may have the same weight of tobacco as a much smaller cigar and because of the loose pack smoke poorly. A cheap Churchill may weigh the same as a good Robusto and not last as long when you smoke it.
The same blend and wrapper in different sizes of cigars will taste different. Smaller rings burn hotter and get more flavors from the wrapper so if you try a cigar and like it but want more from it, try a thinner cigar in the line, same is true if it seems to overpower, a thicker cigar may be great.
Cigars are natural and no two are exactly the same, so every one will not be the exact same even in a single box, you probably can’t tell the difference very often, but now and again you’ll get one that is “off”. You are also natural and always changing, how you feel, what you’ve eaten or not, what you may be munching on drinking while smoking will all change the experience. Start with water as you are learning, Strong cigars seem better after a heavy meal and lighter cigars can get lost after a heavy or spicy meal or a heavier previous cigar.
Watch your environment, how wet or dry the air is, how warm or cold, if you are near the smell of the ocean, the chlorine of a pool or smoke from a BBQ can all make a difference in the experience. I leaned not to smoke floating in a pool the hard way, the chlorine did bad things to me and the cigar.
If you still have the cigar bug in six months seek out more knowledge, get on BOTL.org and research storage, humidification and aging cigars. Oh yea, and remember to share very good cigars with those who take the time to share their knowledge with you.
