Getting Started with Cigars

This article will give you all the basic information you need to start smoking Cigars including how to pick, prepare and smoke it.

It’s recommended if it is your first time smoking cigars, visiting a cigar specialising retailer so you can see it before purchasing. Once you’ve become familiar with the brands and cigars, you will be good to purchase them from the internet or brick & mortar stores.

There are thousands of different cigars in product lines within the hundreds of brands. To select the right cigar from the thousands available we have to consider the brand, construction and flavour.

Brand- It is important at first to choose a popular brand as they have success from maintaining quality in their cigars, to ensure you don’t have a bad first experience. Like wine cigars are handmade, and influenced by soil and weather is the tobacco as are grapes.

Flavour/body- This refers to the strength and flavour of your cigar, for someone who is just starting to use cigars would be advised to use light-bodied. For example, full-bodied cigar could be compared to a black espresso, whilst medium-bodied as coffee with milk and sugar or light-bodied could be compared to tea with milk and sugar.

Construction- Cigars are handmade so it might not be rolled perfectly. To check this when your choosing your cigar, you should look for soft spots which will not burn properly. Hold the cigar in your hand and gently squeeze different areas. If you find these soft spots it hasn’t been rolled correctly. With the more popular brands the construction should be good and not have this problem so much.

As a beginner you shouldn’t buy a whole box of cigars to last you even if you like it a lot. You should try with a few different as your taste is likely to change and you are likely to move on to medium-bodied or strong-bodied. Some quality brands to try are;
Don Diego, Macanudo, Baccarrat, Licenciados, Montesino and Cuesta Rey.

A cigar has 4 different basic parts to it; The Cap, Head, Body and Foot. Starting from the top I explain each part.

Cap- This is a piece of tobacco which makes it feel better in your mouth and ensures the wrapper won’t unravel.

Head- This is the part for your mouth and drawing the smoke.

Foot- This is the part of the cigar you are to light.

Unlike a cigarette you are not to inhale the smoke into your lungs, you simply draw it into your mouth to taste and then blow out the smoke.