Once the cigars are aged in the marrying room, they are inspected and sorted by color. This is quite the task as there are roughly 60 different shades of brown. It’s a really big deal for not only the cigar maker, but also the cigar smoker, to open a box and see all...
There are 3 basic ways to make a cigar. Of course, there are variations here and there on each type and what is acceptable under each classification and also what each factory refers to them as. However, we’d be here for a few more weeks if we were to break them all...
Our tobacco leaves have now completed the fermentation process and each leaf is separated, sorted, inspected, and graded. For instance, wrapper leaves are separated by color (i.e. Claro, Colorado, Maduro, Oscuro). Each type is packed together in bales made from bark...
Once our tobacco leaves have dried in the curing barns, they are shipped off to the packing houses. The leaves are once again sorted, this time by size, texture, and color. Once sorted the leaves are once again tied together with a strip of palm tree leaf. They are...
After the leaves are properly re-hydrated through casing, the leaves that will be used for as a binder or wrapper go through a process to remove the central vein in each leaf. The left and right sides are kept separate, especially for wrapper leaves. There is a natural pattern that follows the natural form of the leaf when rolling the cigar. The leaves are then inspected, graded, and hand sorted into wrapper, binder, and filler tobacco.
The leaves are sent to the blender where they are separated down into the specific blends for each type of cigar made by that factory. These blends, or recipes, are highly guarded secrets and you won’t find any cigar maker handing out any hints. These recipes give the cigar its character and taste.
The filler is the heart of the cigar. It can be made of either long or short filler (Long filler = the strips of tobacco stretch the entire length of the cigar. Short filler = the tobacco pieces are cut up). As you can surmise, long filler is capable of producing a longer ash that short filler. There are also cigars with mixes of long and short filler and even some with “chopped” filler, but we’ll cover those another time.
Think of the binder as the blanket that holds the filler together. This is tricky as the leaf must be strong enough to do the job, but have a complimentary flavor to the filler blend. A sign of a premium cigar is having a binder made from natural tobacco leaf and not a homogenized binder (a combination of leaf particles and cellulose).
And then we have the wrapper. The aesthetically pleasing look of the cigar that can also provide 30-60% of the flavor. Cigars are most often selected based on the look, texture, color, and aroma of the wrapper. If the cigar is not pleasing to the eye, it won’t matter how good it smokes, since chances are, it won’t make it off the shelf.
Next week, we will discuss the three different ways in which cigars are made. Then the following week we will wrap up this series.