How do the packaged cigars available from drugstores and the like compare to the real cigar smoker's cigars?
Packaged cigars like those seen at register 12 at Wal-Mart include ingredients other than tobacco such as paper, saltpeter, and Glycerin (to keep them moist). A real cigar contains only tobacco. Most better cigars contain premium quality leaves, and are constructed of "long-filler". In a "long filler" cigar, the leaves run the length of the cigar, rather than being cuttings or scraps of tobacco left over from better cigars. Sort of like KFC having nightmares about the fact that they are tossing away the beaks and feet, cigar makers want to use all of the tobacco in some form rather than throw it out, ergo less expensive cigars with the same tobacco but in less than ideal form. Don't get us wrong... the cuttings from premium tobaccos are the same tobacco as in their premium, top-shelf brothers, just stuffed differently. More on the difference between long and short fillers is found elsewhere on this web site, as is the difference between machine made and handmade puros. As a good rule of thumb, better quality, handmade, long filler cigars are only available from tobacconists or from a cigar company online.

It seems like a lot of people buy cigars online. Are these cigars a good buy?
Many passionate cigar smokers use catalog houses or web sites mostly for their discounted prices. However, there are very few catalog or internet suppliers who will allow you purchase single cigars, providing the best case for visiting a local tobacconist. There you can experiment with buying singles before you commit to a box of a particular brand and size. Tap into the knowledge base in your tobacconist's head. Anyone in the business who's worth his wage can answer any of your questions about any cigar in the humidor. If he cannot, you need a new smokeshop.

What about older cigars? Shouldn't a person buy the freshest ones they can find?
The tobacco used in any high quality cigar is aged 18 to 24 months before rolling. Some cigar makers  age their rolled cigars for an additional year or even more before even sending them out to their distributors. There's no such thing as an old cigar if they are stored properly. Refer to the question below on aging for more info. Bear in mind that cigars are never what you would call "fresh".

I have a decent quality humidor. How long should I expect a cigar to last?
Ummm... "forever" would be the easy answer. There are people smoking pre-WWII cigars and paying an absolute premium for them for both their rarity and their startlingly unique flavors, obviously. The longer a rolled, long filler cigar is aged (at the proper humidity and temperature levels) the more the fillers and binders are permitted to "Marry". More on this later.

If a cigar dries out, is it possible to get the taste back?
If a cigar is allowed to dry out it will definitely become damaged, but it can be somewhat resurrected by being re-humidified slowly. It will sadly never be what it once was or had the potential to become, but it will be "smokable". Be a man. Throw them out.

I read and hear about a wide variety of "types" of cigars, like Corona, Churchill, Lonsdale, etc. What are the factors that make a cigar one of these types?
Cigars can be divided into two basic but wide categories by their shape. Bear in mind that these are terms you will virtually never hear used and thereby shouldn't feel that this is essential knowledge to become a serious cigar-lover and must be committed to memory to not make a fool of yourself at the tobacconist's shop or smoker. But, nonetheless and partly just to show off, here goes: Parejos, which have straight sides, and Figurados, which include all irregular shapes. Parejos come in three basic types, by the relative proportion of their dimensions. There's Coronas (a broad category including Coronas, Double Coronas, Presidentes, Robustos, and Churchills). All Coronas are characterized by an open "foot" and a rounded "head". (See more on the components of a cigar later.) Next are the Panatelas. Longer than coronas, these are typically quite a bit thinner. The third type are Lonsdales - broader in girth than Panatelas, but typically longer than Coronas. These styles account for virtually 85% of all cigars purchased in the US. Then there are the less popular but often considered better and certainly more historically traditional Figuardos, or "irregular" shaped Cigars. The most diminutive  is the Belicoso - a small tapered cigar with a rounded head (not pointed) and a larger foot. Then come the exotic looking Pyramids, tapering from a large foot to a small head. An actual pyramid will always come to a pointed head. Although many experienced cigar smokers refer to a large pyramid as a torpedo, an actual torpedo has a large foot, smaller, pointed head, and a slight bulge in the middle. The Perfecto is tapered down at each end to a smaller size than its middle section - the traditional cigar shape and what you'd see when someone illustrated a "Stogie". Lastly we come to  the Diademas, referred to as the "giant of cigars", measuring eight inches or longer.

Classic Cigar Shapes by Length
(The second number is the ring gauge, or circumference.)

PANATELAS: Small Panatela (5" x 33) Short Panatela (5" x 38) Slim Panatela (6" x 34) Panatela (6" x 38) Long Panatela (7 1/2" x 38)

CORONAS: Petit Corona (5" x 42) Corona (5 1/2" x 42) Corona Extra (5 1/2" x 46) Robusto1 (5" x 50) Long Corona (6" x 42) Toro (6" x 50) Lonsdale (6 1/2" x 42) Grand Corona (6 1/2" x 46) Churchill (7" x 47) Giant Corona (7 1/2" x 44) Double Corona (7 3/4" x 49)

FIGUARDOS Petite Belicoso (5" x 50) Belicoso (6" x 50) Torpedo (6 1/2" x 52) Pyramid (7" x various) Giant4 (9" x52)

What is the difference between long and short fillers?
As alluded to earlier, in a long filler cigar the tobacco consists of long leaves that run the length of the cigar. These can be bundled in different ways before wrapped in the binder leaves, but you will be smoking the same leaf from start to finish. Short fillers are clippings from larger leaves that are left over after the cigar making process and sometimes even chopped smaller to make it easier to form a uniform shape. This is not tobacco plant refuse, just a different configuration, basically. The clippings from a top shelf cigar would be sold under a different name than its premium quality brother but would contain the same perfectly aged tobacco and made by the same skilled hands. Short filler cigars are slightly more apt to burn unevenly and will rarely offer the long white ash that a grade A stick will produce (a sign of prestige more or less) but the flavor is in there. Machine-made cigars will be using short fillers, however, not all hand-made cigars use long fillers. You could be buying a cigar for a buck a stick that's made by one of the world-famous cigarmakers with the very same quality materials as an $8.00 cigar, with that one difference. But that difference is enough for the factory to disassociate their branding from the lower class image. We have smoked short filler cigars that were, in our opinion, top-notch puros and cartainly nothing to be embarrassed of.

What are the components of a cigar?
The end you light is the foot. It is cut off the cigar near the end of the manufacturing process and will always be open. The other end is the head. Virtually all cigars are assembled in a nearly identical manner, regardless of the shape or size. The appropriate amount of filler leaf is gathered from the workbench area, either rolled or "accordioned" into the appropriate diameter, then rolled into another leaf called a binder. Slightly less costly but every bit as important as other parts, the binder has the job of holding the interior leaves together. The outer layer is referred to as the wrapper. Wrappers are very fine, delicate tobacco leaves that form the outer layer of the cigar and offer the unique tactile differences and obvious flavor varieties that impassioned smokers revel in. The different types of wrappers will be discussed later. At the point that the cigar is bound and pressed into the exact ring size specified, the head end is closed with a cap. A cigar cap is either a flange left on the outer wrapper piece or a small disk-shaped cutting from the same leaf that is "glued" over the head end mostly to keep the outer wrapper from unraveling. 

What are the different types of cigar wrappers?
This is a particularly detailed topic and we will offer a simple overview. Each type of wrapper, aside from the somewhat subtle color differences, typically comes from a different part of the world and contributes characteristics to the flavor and strength of a smoke. the popular wrapper options available are:
 
DOUBLE CLARO (also referred to as Candela or sometimes as American Market Select)- Candela wrappers are a green to a greenish brown in color and the color is arrived at by picking the leaf before it reaches maturity, and then drying it rapidly. Candela wrapper tobacco is fairly bland with very little oil.

CLARO - A light tan in hue and this is usually the color of "shade grown" tobacco. Connecticut Shade wrappers are reputed to be among the finest wrapper leaves on the market. Large canopies are used throughout the growing process to protect the tobacco from sunlight. You would expect a neutral sort of flavor and a smooth smoking cigar.

NATURAL - (also referred to as "English Market Select") are light brown to medium brown in color. Typically they "sun grown", and are not protected from the suns rays like shade grown leaves. You would expect a full bodied flavor, somewhat stronger than their shade grown counterparts, but still quite smooth.

COLORADO CLARO - medium-brown, also referred to as tawny. Camaroon wrappers fall into this category, such as are used in the famous Dominican Partagas or Arturo Fuentes.

COLORADO - Colorado wrappers are a darker reddish brown and felt to be somewhat more aromatic. A cigar with a Colorado wrapper would be expected to taste rich and robust.

COLORADO MADURO - Ahhh... the maduros... Colorado Maduro is a deep, dark brown in color. they are considered medium in strength and somewhat more aromatic what is considered the maduro. Many of the very best Honduran cigars will use a Colorado Maduro wrapper.

MADURO - A true maduro is darker brown to very dark brown. Maduro wrappers will typically be more textured and and show more veining than the lighter wrappers. Often they are described as oily leaves with a quite a bit stronger, sweeter taste and with a unique aroma. There is also such a thing as a "double maduro", which is more or less halfway between a maduro and an oscuro.

OSCURO - Almost black in color, they are the boldest tasting of all wrappers. Oscuro wrappers tend to be from Brazil, Nicaragua, Mexico, or Connecticut Broadleaf.

As a rule, the darker the color is, the stronger and also sweeter the flavor is expected to be, and the greater the oil and sugar content of the leaf. Dark wrappers have spent a longer time on the tobacco plant or may come from somewhat higher altitudes. The added exposure to sunlight results in both oil as protection, and sugar through the process of photosynthesis. They can also expect to have been fermented longer.

Frequent opening and closing of the humidor allows drier air in and more humid air to escape. This will result in accelerated evaporation of the oils in the leaves that give a great cigar its unique taste. When aging cigars in what would be considered your "daily" humidor, you're better off leaving them in their cellophane wrappers to offer a little protection against the change of humidity. 

People sometimes keep a fairly broad assortment of types of cigars in their humidors. With an assortment of different types it's best to leave the cellophane wrappers on. You wouldn't want the muskiness of your precious Hondurans to alter the spiciness from Jamaicans for example. Cigars from the Dominican Republic are typically quite mild and you therefore wouldn't want them to take on the characteristics of a stronger, more powerful blend and defeat the 100 years of craftsmanship that went into their creation.

Keeping on the cellophane wrappers can also slow down the humidity transfer. Your stored cigars will maintain more stability even with the humidor being opened and closed frequently. You've more than likely noticed that one end of the cellophane is simply folded over rather than sealed. This allows the humidity to be incorporated into the cigar over time. It can also protect from your cigars from sharing problems such as mold or even insects.

We would suggest that if you were keeping only one or two similar cigar brands or types of cigars in your humidor that you should maybe consider unwrapping them so the flavors can "marry", producing more consistency from one cigar to another.

What's this about cigar's flavors "marrying"?
The complicated chemical process referred to as "marrying" is a simple fact of tobacco production. Some consider certain cigars to taste what is referred to as "green" until the three different types of  tobacco in the cigars construction have mixed properly. Some of this transfer is conducted via airborne ethers, but actually more can be caused by direct contact which transfers of "essential oils" in the tobaccos. These oils actually travel through the cigar and are transferred through proximity.

Like with humans, marrying can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you have your humidor filled with   similar types of cigars it can practically guaranty a more consistent smoke from one stick to another. If you were to allow your mild or spicy cigars to marry with stronger or more earthy cigars, the marriage is quite remarkable. This is one reason why one should think about leaving the cellophane wrappers on when storing a variety of types of cigars in one humidor and removing the wrappers if they happen to be all the same. Most cigar lovers more or less settle on a favorite "everyday cigar" and fill their humidor with them. Others have broader, more varied tastes or prefer a different type with different meals or even select a particular cigar from the box depending on how much time they are likely to have to smoke it. Other smokers store certain cigars in a completely different humidor from others, for instance the ultra-premiums kept away from the buck-a-stick variety. Wouldn't want the aristocracy to pick up bad habits from the masses would we?

How can these "essential oils" actually travel through the cigar's wrapper to another cigar?
The cigar wrapper, regardless of the type, is just another tobacco leaf. Oils can migrate through this layer of leaf just the same as they travel from any leaves that are in contact with one another such as the different tobaccos found in any cigar. The  oils which are responsible for giving a cigar its unique flavor travel with ease from layer to layer, cigar to cigar. If properly stored, the essential oils of the cigars that are in contact with each other will eventually migrate from one to another and, over time, will stabilize characteristics from one to another.

What is considered to be a second? How are they actually different from the top shelf cigars?
There are several types of what would be referred to as seconds and no actual standards for the classification. Many cigars sold in quantity as seconds were designated to be seconds before they were manufactured.

There is much variation in a product of natural original such as cigars as nature is rarely exact. Tobacco sold in bulk is sold in a variety of grades, and within a bale of tobacco there can be much  variation in the quality of the leaves. As tobacco is sorted for premium cigars, a percentage of the leaf is determined to be not up to the standards outlined for the specific cigars which it was intended  for. However, the manufacturer paid as much for these substandard leaves as for the good ones. This leaf is then put aside and used in rolling what are intended from the git-go to be sold as seconds. Often less experienced cigar rollers are utilized to manufacture cigars from these substandard leaves to keep both labor and production costs down. This sort of second is typically sold at a discounted price to recover costs.

Lately there seems to have been a ton of what are called factory seconds, produced by larger suppliers in a rush to increase production and to train their less experienced rollers. Many of them  intentionally order a less expensive grade of tobacco leaves than their top shelf cigar lines would use. This results in some seconds being simply lower quality cigars, constructed of inferior leaves by less experienced rollers. Beware of this type of seconds. They seem to be becoming increasingly more available in the market.

There are also what is referred to as final, or factory seconds. These would be cigars with imperfect  wrappers, or that were determined by an experienced inspector to be too firm or too soft. Cigars are typically weighed while in the bundle and compared to a factory standard for that type, size, etc. If the bundle is considered to be too heavy or too light, it could be assumed that there may be a problem with the construction. Don't assume that those seconds you're being offered online at a tremendous discount are reduced as a result of some minor wrapper blemishes. Although they may very well be decent cigars, an inspector at the factory more than likely determined the tobacco to be inferior for their standard line.

Which is the best cigar cutter to use?
There are as many types of cigar cutters as there are creative ideas, basically. Some are unusual gizmos and some are novelties and some are totally utilitarian and some are works of art. In they "old days" the cutter (referred to also as "clip" and "snip") was often a piece of table art. Some were humorous metal table sculptures, while others looked like a pocket knife. the modern cigar cutter is a much more transportable unit of one variety or another, intended to fit into your pocket.

They typically are constructed very much like a guillotine or sometimes like a double-bladed guillotine that brings two blades past each other like scissors. Yet others are literally scissors with a cigar-sized semicircle formed into the blades to close around the cigar. There are also types that, rather than cut the end off, cut a V-shaped groove through the end. My personal favorite is an incredibly thin, flat, credit card-sized (and shaped) piece of sturdy sheet steel with the slider embedded into it and retractable along one edge. Hard to visualize but handy as hell as it will even fit into a wallet or even cooler yet, into the credit card slot of a wallet. There is an excellent resource for archived photos of early cigar cutters found HERE.

There is also the cigar punch, a cylindrical blade that punches a shallow hole in the head of the cigar to draw through. Often they will come with a device that pushes out or ejects the punched plug when it is pit together after the deed. They range in price from around $1.49 for the simplest guillotine to $85 and over for the artistic and effective "Xykar" types.

How should a cigar be cut for the best draw?
We mentioned earlier that a handmade cigar has a cap over its head to hold the thin, delicate wrapper leaves in the rolled configuration. The proper place to cut a cigar in somewhere within the cap and very close to the crown, as you are trying to leave a good part of this small area intact to continue to do the job it was intended to do. Some cigar rollers use a small cap, which means that you are literally cutting off, or shaving off, the very tip of the crowned area. Likewise, a punch needn't be inserted deep into the cigar, just through the cap.

What is the proper way to light a cigar?
Ahhh... the ritual continues... You won't see this happen much, or not in public anyway, but the traditional way to light a cigar, and perhaps the best, is to use a wooden match. Strike the match and allow all of the sulfur to burn off, the hold the foot of the cigar above the flame and rotate it slowly as you watch carefully. The idea is to "toast" the foot of the cigar until it is evenly slightly blackened. This will promote the cigar lighting evenly and establishing its burn more effectively. Once this is done, strike another match and hold the foot above the flame and slowly rotate it while drawing on the head. When you are satisfied the it is evenly lit, and that's important, leave it alone for a moment, possibly even for an entire minute, to establish its burn. It is important that a cigar is lit evenly as an unevenly lit cigar may continue to burn unevenly and the results are less than satisfactory.