Beginners’ Guide to Cigars: Part II – Cigar Anatomy

Nice Tight Ash — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:34:45 +0000

In the first part of the Nice Tight Ash Beginners’ Guide to Cigars we took a look at the various sizes and shapes cigars are made in. Today we’re examining what makes up a cigar.

Diagram courtesy of Tobacconist University.

Wrapper

The most obvious part of the cigar you see is the wrapper. The wrapper is a single tobacco leaf of high visual quality. Depending on the type of tobacco used for the wrapper, it can provide the majority of the flavor for a cigar, and it always is the most expensive componet of the cigar.

Binder

The binder is a piece of tobacco leaf that is wrapped around the “bunch,” which is the bundle of filler tobacco. Binder leaves are usually thicker, tougher leaves than those used for the wrapper.

Filler

The filler makes up most of the volume of the cigar, and is comprised of at least two and usually no more than five different tobaccos, and are rolled together to form the “bunch.” The blend of these filler tobaccos provides the other main flavor component of cigars. The mix of different fillers from different countries or even regions of a country, and the proportions used in the filler give different cigars their uniqueness.

Most premium cigars are made with “long filler” which means filler that runs the length of the cigar. Mixed filler or “Cuban sandwich” style filler is a mix of long filler and medium or short filler which results in a less expensive (and sometimes messier) cigar. Short filler is usually found in cheap, machine made cigars.

Cap

The cap is a small circular piece of wrapper leaf placed at the head of the cigar to finish it. The cap is the portion you clip or punch through before smoking.

That’s the end of Part II. Part III will examine the types of tobacco.

Beginners’ Guide to Cigars: Part I – All Shapes and Sizes

Charlie — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:00:25 +0000

Let’s face it. The topic of cigars is pretty vast, and can be a little intimidating to the newly initiated. Working in a cigar shop part-time the past three years has allowed me to meet a bunch of people who want to get into the hobby of cigar smoking, but don’t know where to start. They’re often times intimidated when entering a tobacconist for the first time, and if they go to an online store, they’re overwhelmed by the vast array of choices. So with that in mind, welcome to the Nice Tight Ash Beginners’ Guide to Cigars. We’re going to start with the various sizes and shapes cigars are made in.

Sizes

Two components make up the size of a cigar: length and ring gauge. Cigars distributed in the U.S. have the length noted in inches, and ring gauge is noted in 64^ths of an inch. For example, a cigar that has a 50 ring gauge is 50/64^th of an inch.

Shapes

Cigars are generally divided into parejos and figurados. Parejos are any straight sided cigar with no change in width and a flat head. Everything else, to put it simplistically, is a figurado.

Put them together…

…and you get vitolas. A vitola is the given name for a size and shape of a cigar. Here’s a list of the most vitolas:

Parejos

Corona – 5½” x 42: The standard cigar size, and basis for all other cigar sizes.
Petite Corona – 5″ x 42: Short version of the corona
Corona Gorda – 5½” x 46: Fatter version of the corona; sometimes called the corona extra
Double Corona – 7¾” x 49: Extra long, fat version of the standard corona
Lonsdale – 6&frac1/2;” x 42: Longer version of a corona
Robusto – 5″ x 50: One of the most popular sizes today; wasn’t made until a few decades ago.
Toro – 6″ x 50: Longer version of a robusto
Churchill – 7″ x 47: Longer and slightly thinner than a toro
6″ x 60: A fairly new size without a standardized name. Sometimes called a toro extra or gigante
Lancero – 7½” x 38: A vitola that faded in popularity, but has soared back in the past couple of years

Figurados

Torpedo – 6½” x 52: Roughly toro sized vitola with a pointed head; length and sharpness of the point varies greatly among brands
Pyramid – 7″ x 56: The pyramid is different from the torpedo in that it flares out at the end like the name implies; lots of manufacturers and smokers use this interchangeably with the torpedo.
Belicoso – 5½” x 50: Shorter than a torpedo with a shorter, rounder head; once again it varies among brands
Perfecto: Narrow at the foot and head with a bulge in the middle with no customary length or ring gauge
Culebra: Three short, thin cigars braided together and tied for the ends; not very many are made; used to be given to cigar rollers in the morning as their smokes for the day

Exceptions to the rule

These are not not hard and fast rules. Every manufacturer has their own terminology and standards. Some may roll a lancero at 40 ring gauge. Some might roll a Churchill at 7¼” x 50. But that list will give you a general guideline. There are a ton of differences in the naming and dimensions of figurados. That you will have to feel your way through.

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