Smoking cigars is a relaxing event. On the other hand, selecting the perfect cigar for the enjoyment on the patio or deck can be a bit more daunting. There are literally thousands of different types of cigars in the world. They come in different shapes, sizes, colors and flavors. Let’s start with the basics so that your shopping experience will be as enjoyable as smoking a cigar.
A cigar is basically tobacco leaves rolled up into a round shape. Cigars can be rolled by hand or by machine rolling. Machine-made cigars usually have small bits of ground up tobacco, kind of like a cigarette does, inside and a tobacco leaf wrapped around it to hold it all together. Hand-made cigars are a very different story. The leaves are whole tobacco, not ground up, and each part of the cigar is made using whole tobacco leaves.
Cigars are made up of three parts: filler, wrapper, and binder, with each part doing exactly what it says. The filler is the innermost part of the cigar, the binder is a leaf that holds the insides of the cigar from unwinding, and the wrapper is the outermost part that keeps everything on the inside together.
More in depth information on cigar history and smoking cigars can be found below.
All information is provided by Perelman’s Cigar Cyclopedia of Cigars.