A good cigar is a thing of joy. When you smoke a top-shelf hand-rolled cigar, you enjoy a blend of tobacco farmers' skill, flavor science, and incredible craftsmanship. The 60-90 minutes you spend with it reflect hundreds of hours of hard work.
But what makes a cigar good? Is it the tobacco, the flavor, or the construction? A favorite cigar you can buy in bulk, or a boutique cigar you might only ever get to smoke once?
What makes a good cigar is a combination of these things and your tastes. Let’s explore the different factors that influence cigar quality and discuss tips on how to pick a good cigar.
Top Quality Tobacco
So, what's a good cigar got that a poor-quality stogie lacks? The best tobacco is a solid starting point. Skilled experts roll individual leaves by hand to form the bunch, which allows them to make the best cigars with vintage long fillers.
These artisans construct fantastic cigars with reliably consistent wrappers. Connecticut Broadleaf, Connecticut Shade, Candela, Habano, Maduro, and Oscuro shape every cigar's look and taste.
Smokes get their flavors and aromas from a mix of filler, binder, and wrapper tobacco. Like Drew Estate ACID cigars, brands can also add flavor and aroma through infusions.
Quality tobacco is essential to making a good cigar—no other ingredients are needed.
The Art of Fermentation and Aging
Before torcedors hand-roll the cigars, farmers have to grow the tobacco. Growers cultivate top-quality tobacco by carefully selecting seeds—often Cuban varieties for quality smokes—and using ideal soil and climate conditions. That's why locations like Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic are so popular for growing.
Experts then harvest, ferment, and age the tobacco leaves, bringing their flavors to the fore.
Different fermentation techniques produce various results. For example, producers use leaves harvested early and dried quickly for candela wrappers. This preserves the chlorophyll content and gives the leaf and cigar a green appearance.
Longer fermentation darkens the leaves and produces a maduro wrapper, bringing more complexity, richness, and sweetness. Many aficionados prize maduro cigars for these qualities.
Construction
Construction is a considerable factor in what makes a cigar good. Craftspeople make outstanding cigars using long fillers, rolling individual leaves by hand into the bunch. In comparison, machine-made cigars use short fillers, which manufacturers chop and blend like cigarettes.
Artisans also use a ton of skill in shaping the cigar and applying the cap. Different vitolas (sizes and shapes) of the same cigar can offer a unique smoking experience.
A good first step in learning to pick a good cigar is finding the size you like to smoke. Coronas usually measure around 5.5" x 42, and manufacturers consider them the standard size for cigars. Churchills are closer to 7" x 50 and will take much longer to smoke.
The Perfect Draw
Torcedors hand-roll top-quality cigars because these skilled experts have generations of experience making the perfect bunch.
Rolling long fillers with consistent small pockets of air between them allows smokers to draw the smoke smoothly through the cigar barrel. This steady draw is another key component of a good cigar.
Use a humidor to store your cigars at the right temperature and humidity, and you’ll have the best chance of a perfect draw. Keep your cigars close to 70% relative humidity at 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Balance and Complexity of Flavor
Most of what we’ve discussed is how the cigar looks and how it feels to smoke. However, little of this affects the smoke's flavor. Balancing flavor and adding complexity is key to what cigar brands do. Even now, new cigars can explore flavors in ways no one has before.
Some experienced smokers enjoy puros. Puro cigars use filler, binder, and wrapper tobaccos from just one country. Others prefer blends that mix tobaccos from different regions.
Nicaraguan puros are especially popular and often regarded as some of the closest cigars to Cuban Habanos.
Appearance and Aroma
What does a good cigar have to do with the way it looks? Well, first impressions count a lot when browsing cigars to buy online.
As your smoking experience and cigar knowledge grow, you'll be able to tell a few things about a cigar by looking at it. This includes the size and shape, cap type, wrapper (natural or maduro), and the brand name on the paper band.
Top-quality cigars don’t have cracks or bulges in their wrappers. They only use smooth leaves, reflecting the quality of the craftsmanship.
Finally, many aficionados consider the cold draw—the aroma of the cigar before lighting it—an integral part of the smoking process. Smokers can detect hints of the flavors hidden inside the cigar, which will release when they light the cherry and take their first draw.
Consistency
The qualities defining a good cigar are personal, and you might not care about everything we’ve discussed. However, you'll find some favorite traits you keep returning to over time.
That might be a particular country of origin, a specific vitola, a wrapper type, or something else. But this builds your expectations, making consistency one of the hallmarks of a great cigar.