Posts Tagged ‘premium cigars’

5 Popular Premium Cigar Brands

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

You will find hundreds of cigars available in the market. You can find cheap as well as incredibly expensive cigars. These cigars can be a downright terrible smoke to the best smoke of your life. We have listed 5 popular cigar brands here:

Arturo Fuente cigars

Arturo Fuente is a brand of cigar founded by Arturo Fuente Sr.. The Arturo Fuente line of cigars includes different sizes from tiny cigarillo to the giant presidente. Arturo Fuente cigars range from economical to premium. Fuente Fuente Opus X, which was introduced in 1995, is the most well-known cigar of the family. Hemingway and 858 are quite popular as well.

Cohiba cigars

Two types of premium cigars use the same name, Cohiba. One is manufactured in Cuba and the other is made in the Dominican Republic. Cohiba cigars tends to be medium to full-bodied in flavor. The Cuba brand contains specifically fermented tobacco resulting a unique taste.

Rocky Patel Cigars

Rocky Patel is a brand created by Hollywood celebrity attorney Rakesh “Rocky” Patel. Rocky Patel cigars vary from the economical to the premium. A lot of control measures are applied on drying, fermentation, aging, and blending processes during the cigar production. The result is high quality cigars. It has become a popular cigar brand.

Partagas Cigars

Partagas is one of the oldest cigar brands. Two independent and competing companies, Habanos SA and General Cigar Company, use this brand name for their cigars.

Romeo y Julieta cigars

Habanos SA and Altadis SA use this brand name for their cigars. Habanos SA is Cuban company whereas Altadis SA is based in La Romana, Dominican Republic.

Find Out How to Smoke a Cigar

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Cigars are more natural alternative to cigarettes. It might be a real delicacy by smoking a cigar on special occasions or just for fun. For example, smoking premium cigars such as onyx cigars, backwoods cigars, partagas cigars during a card game is enjoyable.

Cigar smoking should be done slowly, allowing yourself sufficient time to taste and savor the full flavor of the cigar. A smaller cigar could continue for about half an hour. A longer could continue for an hour or even more. To savor the most out of your cigar, you can follow these simple steps:

Preparation

Your cigar should be properly cut. In most cases, a cigar cutter is needed. Double Guillotine cutter is the most common used cigar cutter because it yields a perfect cut easily. Some would suggest cutting it with a sharp blade if you do not have a cigar cutter.

Remove the Ring Wrapper

It is not always necessary to remove the ring wrapper. Leaving the brand of the cigar on while smoking is considered rude. You can smoke the cigar with label on and let the heat from smoking melt the glue. The label will fall off on its own. The will prevent you from breaking the wrapper unintentionally while removing the label.

Light the Cigar

It is common to use wooden matches or butane lighters to light up a cigar. You may suck lightly with your mouth while lighting up your cigar. The whole tip of cigar must be evenly lit. You can rotate the cigar around to make certain it does.

Smoke It

Use your thumb and index fingers to hold the cigar. Take a puff and taste it in your mouth for few seconds and then let it go. You can enjoy the flavor of your cigar of choice without inhaling the smoke. Smoke little by little, one puff per minute is ideal.

Extinguish It When Done

When putting out a cigar, it is not recommended to crush it on an ashtray just like a cigarette. The best way is to leave the cigar on the rim of the ashtray. Without you smoking it, the cigar will extinguish on its own after a minute or two. To prevent bad smell of cold tobacco, the stub needs to be disposed off quickly.

Cigars Buying Tips

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

It will be a complex task for beginner to search for a fine cigar because there are countless brands in the market. Choosing a fine cigar could be easy if you follow the these cigars choosing and purchasing tips for beginners.

Always Select the Handmade

First of all, you need to always avoid machine-roll cigars if you are searching for quality cigars. You can locate a label indicating the cigars are handmade on the cigar band and box. You can find cigars come with misleading label such “hecho a mano” (made by hand) and “envuelto a mano” (packed by hand). These cigars are not hand crafted cigar due to the fact that they are partly constructed by machine.

Where is it from?

Cuba produces the world finest cigars. Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras, produce strong and flavorful cigars too. Other countries for instance Ecuador, Mexico, Cameroon, Indonesia, the Philippines and the United States also produce quality cigars.

The Big Brands

Each brand of cigar tastes different. Premium cigar brands like Montecristo, Partagas and Macanudo are known for producing well-crafted cigars with full flavors. For example, Montecristo Cigars (No. 4) are perfectly crafted for people who are cigar beginners.

Get Hands On

A good quality cigar has a lustrous sheen and slightly oily texture. A bad cigar won’t have much of tobacco scent. A bad cigar will fall apart in your hand.

Go to Specialists

Tobacconists and cigar shops carry a wide range of cigar brands. A good thing about going to the specialist is that you can ask for advice from knowledgeable staff at tobacconists. A store with a walk-in humidor is probably a good place to look for a cigar because the shop replicates the environment of the cigar’s origin country.

Go late

Without proper storage, a cigar must be smoked in a day or two of purchase. When you are not able to provide appropriate storage, it is advisable that you purchase it just before you give it as a gift. Cigars packaged in tube can last for a week or so. So you can consider buying tube packaged cigar instead.

All About Cigar Shapes

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

In addition to grouping the cigars based on country of origin and fillers, cigars can also be grouped by its shapes and sizes. There are lots of different shape of cigars to select from. Here are the common cigar shapes:

Parejo

The most typical shape of a cigar is parejo. It is a kind of cigar that has straight cylindrical body with one open end. The closed end of the cigar consists of a round tobacco leaf cover which smoker must slice off with a cutter before smoking it. Here are cigars that are in parejo shape:

  • Robusto: A 4 7/8 inches cigar with ring gauge of 50.
  • Corona: It is 5 1/2 inches long and has ring gauge of 42.
    • Petite Corona: A 5 1/2 inches cigar with ring gauge of 42.
    • Double Corona: It is 7 5/8 inches long and has ring gauge of 49.
    • Corona Grandes: It is usually 6 1/2 inches in length and has ring gauge of 42.
    • Grand Corona: It is 9 1/4 inches long and has ring gauge of 47.
  • Panetela: A 6 inches cigar with ring gauge of 38.
  • Lonsdale: A 6 1/2 inches cigar with ring gauge of 42.
  • Churchill: A 7 inches cigar with ring gauge of 47-50.

Figurado

Irregularly shaped cigars are generally described as figurado. They can be hard to make. They are not as common as parejos. Figurados include:

  • Torpedo: It’s got straight and cylindrical body. The cap of the cigar is pointed.
  • Pyramid: The foot of the cigar is broader than cap.
  • Perfecto: The cigar has got narrow ends. The middle part of the cigar is bulging.
  • Presidente/Diadema: It has closed foot. The shape of this cigar is just like parejob. But the size of this cigar is larger.
  • Culebras: A unique cigar with three pointed cigars braided together.

Some Arturo fuente cigars made by Arturo Fuente, a sizable cigar producer located in the Dominican Republic, are figurados in exotic.

Little cigars

There are smaller size of cigars that look like cigarettes or even electronic cigarettes. These are distinctive from regular cigars. These cigar are generally called little cigars, small cigars or miniatures cigars.