How To Select A Cigar
What size and body should you choose? And how do you know it’s fresh? Our cigar aficionado guides you through the selection process.
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Step 1: How long are you smoking?
So if you're going to choose a cigar you would first of all decide how long you are going to be smoking for. The flavor and the intensity of the tobacco will change through the whole length of the cigar. Ideally you would smoke it close to the end so there is little point in choosing a very large cigar if you know you only have a short time to smoke it.
So we have one of the most popular sizes here, which is a Petit Corona, which will last for perhaps four to five minutes. Up to one of the largest that is commonly available, which is the Double Corona, which could last anything up to two hours for the average smoker.
Step 2: What are you going to enjoy it with?
Beyond the time that it is going to take to smoke you would consider what you're going to be enjoying with the cigar. If it is going to be following a heavy meal then you would want a full-bodied cigar. If you are drinking a lighter style drink you might want something that is relatively medium bodied, or if you are having, for example, a very heavy whiskey, that’s very oily, then you might want something a little more full bodied to stand up to that.
Step 3: Testing the cigar
If you are selecting a cigar and you weren't sure, if it hadn't come from your own humidor, then it is quite easy to test the quality of it in terms of how the cigar will smoke by simply squeezing the length of the cigar gently. If it is in good smoking condition it should be slightly springy to the touch. Whereas if it was a little more rigid and firm that’s usually an indication that the cigar is dried out somewhat and will probably burn quite harshly when you're smoking it.
To take an extreme case of that, apparently in Cuba when a cigar has just been taken from the Torcedor's desk the conditions are such that when the very fresh tobacco is rolled into a cigar you can squeeze the cigar so firmly that your fingers will almost meet and yet it will spring back into normal shape, the straight sided shape of the cigar. This is an indication that the cigar is very fresh indeed.
