Enjoying a cigar a bit at a time. How?

In My Humble Opinion
1

The bar I go to has started selling cigars. I smoke maybe one a year, but the little display humidor caught my eye. There were only six different cigars, so I just asked the guy at the counter for a recommendation. I wound up with a Luchador, a cool torpedo of tobacco with an eleven dollar price tag :eek: (I remember buying Macanudos for $1.75)

So, I eagerly lit up and it was good, but then it began raining and the deck was no longer hospitable. I moved indoors (and stopped hitting my cigar). I relit it for the drive to the restaurant, then let it go out again. Rinse, repeat.

So anyway, what do people do with cigars that they smoke a bit at a time? Keeping in mind that I might not buy another for a while.

2

I’ve never had good luck with relighting a cigar. Oh, if it goes out while I’m smoking it and I relight immediately, that’s fine. But if I put it away for a few hours, or even overnight, I’ve never enjoyed it again upon relighting. It loses a lot.

Better to invest in smaller cigars that you can finish in the time you have available. IMHO of course.

3

Where’s the pause button on a cigar?

I mean, how do you put it out? Bang it against something so the cherry falls off? Wouldn’t it continue to smoulder?

4

I usually consider them a lost cause. You can’t put it back in the humidor, so maybe you could try and seal in an air-tight plastic bag and make sure as much as air as possible is evacuated.

5

They go out on their own in a minute or two if not puffed. Cigarettes don’t do that because of the paper & other chemicals added to the tobacco to keep it smoldering.

6

cut the lit end off, store it in a sealed plastic bag with a bit of wet paper towel to rehydrate it. You don’t want the wet paper towel touching the cigar.

7

So, it’s a thing and not just me. I’ll try to time it out better, buy smaller gars, etc. No easy option.

8

I agree with Tim R. Mortiss - if it goes out and you let it go cold, it isn’t exactly ruined but it will never be as good. Cold ash has a different and not pleasant flavor than smoke. I don’t pretend to have much of a palate, but so it seems to me.

You could cut it in half before you begin, and put the unlit half back in the humidor, but that tends to loosen the outer leaf and wastes a lot of the cigar into two butt ends.

I had a robusto yesterday while working in the back yard, and it went out about half way thru. I didn’t relight it for about twenty minutes. It was only a cheap one, but even so, I could tell the difference. Not only from having to have it warm up again, but the flavor was compromised.

I have a range of cigars, and I don’t light the expensive ones until I am sure I have at least an hour to finish it.

Regards,
Shodan

9

lit cigars are drying themselves out as they are smoked. Any cigar that dries out tastes worse. That’s why they are kept in a humidor. Any dry cigar can be rehydrated to improve it’s flavor.

So again, cut off the burned end and put it back in a container with a damp piece of paper towel or sponge so it can regain it’s optimum humidity.

10

But it’s never quite the same as one that hasn’t been allowed to dry out.

11

You have a metric ton of tars and other smoke related flavors now permeating your cigar. Once those go cold you end up with a weird taste because you are now smoking already smoked tobacco. If one of mine goes out and I relight right away I have no issues but they get pretty nasty when they are allowed to cool off. I never could smoke one that was relit a day or 3 later.

12

Well yah but I’ve brought back many a cigar simply by establishing proper humidity. The first draw is always going to be best.

13

I’ve heard that a slice of apple can also keep the cigar hydrated. Haven’t tried it myself, but it might be worth a try.

14

It will taste better on relighting if you blow the smoke out of the cigar before letting it go out.

15

I used to smoke 'gars all the time. But haven’t had one for quite a while.

There was a guy I used to work with who would smoke 4 hits off one, blow through it, and then snip the stoke off and put it in the tube. Drove me nuts. Took him all shift to smoke one cigar. And he’d stink up the squad with it. Cigars I like but I don’t want to ride in a car that smells like stale smoke.

Anyway, that’s how he did it.

16

In my humble opinion, that’s fucked up, man.

Enjoying a cigar is all about finding a patch of time when you can just CHILLLLLLL. Light up, enjoy the flavor, and just relax and ruminate on all that is good in your life as you taste the smoke and watch the clouds circulate around your head. And feel the kinship with all your forbears who did the same thing over the centuries before you… That’s living!

17

Not an apple! Unless you like an apple-flavored cigar, that is. However, a chunk of a raw potato is pretty neutral, and will work in a pinch.

Tobacco loves to pick up ambient flavors and odors. That’s how menthol cigarettes are made (menthol plus tobacco in a closed chamber), and it is how pipe tobaccos can be made to taste/smell like vanilla, caramel, etc.

That’s it exactly. Nicely said.