Walking into a humidor full of various kinds of cigars is like walking into a smoker’s art gallery. The history of the cigar is as distinguished and rich as many of the products themselves. While the making and smoking of cigars may seem pretty straight forward, they can actually be quite complex.
To start, the aging process of the leaves is one of the many ways a good cigar distinguishes itself from the run-of-the-mill cigars. Depending on how and with what the tobacco leaves were aged with, can give the cigar a certain flavor. The nuanced(sp) undertones of a cigar’s flavor can range from very heavy and earthy to very light with hues of fruit or spices. There are also certain cigars that are only made from specific leaves of the tobacco plant to give it a specific taste or burn.
What the cigar’s wrapped in is also incredibly important to being able to tell the difference between different high-end cigars. While most cheap cigars are typically rolled in cheaply flavored and quickly cured tobacco leaf wrappers, high-end cigars blend the flavors of different plant materials by using different leaves as wrappers for more high-end cigars. The Don Pepin Garcia, for example, uses an oily Nicaraguan Corojo leaf as a wrapper to give this luxury cigar’s flavor more depth.
There might be some debate as to whether or not one’s supposed to leave a cigar band on while smoking it or not. But what every good cigar enthusiast knows is that the band of the cigar’s important. Of course they serve the function of occasionally indicating the country or region the cigar hails from. However, cigar bands can often make or break the aesthetic of a cigar, which renders it unappealing, no matter how carefully crafted the actual product is. That’s why manufacturers of well-crafted cigars are extremely careful about the look of the artwork they seal their product with. Colors can range from regal and bold to lightly and finely colored detail. While it might not change the taste of the actual cigar, make no mistake, that this is an integral part of the experience without a doubt.
Cigars can be a rich, fulfilling hobby. And collecting and smoking them has been a hobby for decades, and it’s these carefully crafted works of art that keep us coming back.