What Makes a Premium Cigar Truly PREMIUM?

What is a premium cigar?
Premium cigars are always made by hand, and when you look at two premium cigars of the same type, they are consistent from one to the next. It takes a great deal of skill to roll such a cigar in order to make certain that that it will burn smoothly and at just the right rate.

What type of filler is used in premium cigars?
Long filler is used. Long filler is made from full leaves that run the entire length of the cigar. They are carefully picked, carefully handled, stored, and aged intact. Aging is the most important component to this process. Just like fine wine, fine tobacco must go through a carefully timed and monitored process to truly offer the level of excellence that justifies a cigar being called “premium.”

In most cases too, a single country of origin, such as Cuba, Honduras, or Cost Rica, is used exclusively to make the filler in a specific brand or line of cigars. This, again, guarantees that the taste of each and every cigar in the box will be consistent with that of the previous one smoked.

What kinds of wrappers are used in premium cigars?
The wrapper is a high-quality tobacco leaf that is wrapped around the finished bunch and binder. A truly excellent wrapper will have no visible veins on its leaves, and no blemishes of any kind. The colors of wrappers are generated by the aging process. Basically, there are three shades of wrappers used in premium cigar rolling. The first is CANDELA or DOUBLE CLARO, which is a light yellow-green shade. It is known for the mildest flavor and the sharpest aroma. The second shade is NATURAL, also known as ENGLISH MARKET SELECT. It is a light or medium brown. The taste is more rounded, as they say, and the aroma more laid back. Most aficionados prefer the EMS shade in their cigars. Finally, the MADURO wrapper is the darkest in color (being sometimes almost mahogany black) and has the fullest aroma and taste.

What type of taste is a premium cigar known for?
There are many different flavors that have become famous with cigar aficionados over the years. Experienced smokers generally agree that the best tobaccos have a distinctively mild or rich taste with subtle overtones of additional tastes as well. Some of these subtle overtones come from the wrappers as well as the fillers.

Popular flavors include spice, leather, earth, toast, nut, berry, almond, pepper, woods, and even grass. Yes, all of these are aromatic overtones that an experienced smoker not only likes, but genuinely loves.

As a general principle too, lighter colored wrappers are characterized by milder flavors and fewer aftertastes. Darker wrappers are normally much richer in flavor. This is not a hard fast rule though. It really all depends on the manufacturer and the blend more than anything else, because a truly premium cigar is a masterpiece that defies stereotype.

What type of aroma characterizes a premium cigar?
Aroma comes from additives that create scents like apple, orange, cherry, chocolate, coffee, and whisky. Properly storing a cigar in a humidor is necessary to keep it in the very best condition.

Cigar Types

How are different cigar types classified?
Cigars are categorized in several ways, such as by method of manufacture, size and shape, flavor or strength, and country of origin.

One of the most common ways to categorize cigars is by their shape and size. Although this sounds simple, it can be very confusing. For many years, the cigar industry has been using terms such as Corona and Panatela, which correspond to the approximate length and width of the cigar, not the manufacturer or brand.

How do different types of cigars taste?
The taste of different cigar types refers to both the nature of the taste and the depth of its perception on the palate, lips, nose, and throat. Many different adjectives are used to describe flavor, and of course, different types of tobacco and methods of maturing it have a very big impact on just what a cigar ultimately tastes like.

Such terms as coffee, cherry, sweet, salty, apricot, mature, and green are used to describe the actual flavor.

The depth of flavor that a particular cigar type produces is normally described by adjectives of intensity. Terms such as bland, hints, overtones, decidedly, massive, or rich can signify not so much the actual taste you will encounter, but the intensity of the taste you will experience once you have encountered it.

So if you here a person say something along the lines of “that cigar has a rich, sweet flavor”, such an expression signifies that the cigar both smells and tastes sweet, and that other senses beyond the taste buds themselves (such as the palate and the nostrils) participate in sensory enjoyment of the cigar.

If you are new to cigar smoking, awareness of this simple descriptive process can go a long way toward building your cigar etiquette and having intelligent conversation with other cigar aficionados.

Where is the tobacco for the best cigar types grown?
While some cigar tobacco is grown in the Eastern United States, the majority of it is grown in warmer, more humid climates. The world’s largest producer of cigars is the Dominican Republic. This is not by accident either, because the Dominican Republic lies on the island of Hispaniola, which was the first islands discovered by Christopher Columbus, who also brought tobacco back to Europe.

This part of the world has ever since been a major player in the production of all sorts of premium and coveted cigar types.

Cuba has a more widespread claim to fame in popular culture, mostly due to its turbulent history. However, the majority of cigar aficionados prefer Dominican cigar types both in terms of aroma, colors, and prices.

Other countries where cigar tobacco is grown include Honduras, Brazil, and Nicaragua.