Cigar smoking isn’t necessarily hard to do, despite the intimidating size of the item when compared to cigarettes. However, they still require some form of preparation and maintenance to make sure that your smoking experience is the most optimal it can be. With bad upkeep, your cigar can easily dry out and turn flaky, turning it into a difficult and unpleasant smoking experience. There is an art to smoking a cigar, which is half of the appeal to some, turning it into a rewarding leisure activity.
A brief history
Christopher Columbus is most often credited for discovering cigars, but of course, they existed in America far before the European arrived on its shores. Local natives would roll up dried tobacco leaves and smoke them like that, which instantly hooked Columbus and his crew, so much so that they took the substance home and helped spread its popularity throughout Europe, where the rolling technique was perfected.
Throughout the 20th century, cigar-smoking became a symbol of masculinity, with icons such as Babe Ruth and John Wayne depicted smoking cigars in the media. Around this time, cigars became Cuba’s biggest export, until a trade embargo was authorized by John F. Kennedy that still lasts to this day, making Cuban cigars illegal to buy in the United States. However, even Kennedy was infatuated with these items and had his secretary order 1,200 hand-rolled Cuban cigars just before the embargo was put in place.
Maintenance
There are a couple of ways to help look after your cigars and preserve them so that they’re perfect to smoke. You want to make sure that your cigar doesn’t dry out as this makes it burn quicker, crack and peel more easily and, worst of all, lose its mature flavor. The easiest way to do this is to keep the cigar moist, and this can be done by storing them in a Tupperware box with a small bit of sponge so that it soaks up excess moisture. You don’t want a cigar to be dry, but you also don’t want it to be soggy.
A good option to keep your cigar moist is to invest in a humidor. These are box-like pieces of furniture that keeps the humidity around your cigars at an optimum, which can elongate the life of your cigars so that they can be stored for longer. The best cigar humidors can be a little pricey though, ranging from $50 – $200 and even a lot more for the top-quality varieties, but if you’re serious about cigars, then they’re a must.
Another essential is a cigar cutter. These are the greatest ways to enjoy the smoking experience as it creates a mess-free and easy way to make a passageway between the tobacco to your mouth, without the cigar unraveling or getting tobacco in your mouth. The most common way to cut your cigar is through a guillotine cutter that cuts straight through the end of your cigar. When doing it, it’s important not to cut into the body of the cigar and just to cap off the head, as cutting into the body will cause your cigar to unravel and become hard to smoke.
