A Beginners Guide to Cigars
The reason for entering the world of cigars is different for everyone, some people got into it because of a father or a friend, some people got into it to enjoy cigars at a buck’s party, and some people get into it simply because they saw someone enjoying a cigar on social media and thought that they would like to try it. Whatever your own reasoning is, it can be difficult to know where to start.
There is a tremendous range of videos online about everything to do with cigars. The most helpful ones are about how to cut and light your cigar as well as how the cigar is constructed in order to help you understand how to enjoy your first cigar. When it comes to picking out your first cigar, there are thousands of videos titled “Best Cigars for Beginners’ and while these give you some good options, it can all get very confusing and complicated. That is why our specialised team here at The Index is trained in order to help find the right cigar for you.
The main things for your first cigar will be what enjoyment time you want, how much you want to spend, and if you are pairing it with any alcoholic beverages. All these choices help narrow down the best option for yourself. We have compiled a list of our top 3 options for beginners to suit any occasion. For a traditional Cuban cigar, many people begin on the Hoyo De Monterrey Epicure N.2. Those of you wanting to try something with a shorter enjoyment time, we recommend the Davidoff Primeros Dominican. Finally for a lighter, creamy, vanilla cigar, the AJ Fernandez New World Connecticut is by far one of our most popular.
Once you choose the best cigar for your occasion, you then need some accessories to go along with it. Before you can enjoy your cigar, you must cut the cap off to allow you to get airflow through. There are many videos online about how to cut the cap, and if you visit the Maison, we can cut your cigars for you, if you are ordering online or if you would like to experience this yourself, we have many different cigar cutters available. When lighting your cigar, you want to stay away from using standard cheap lighters as the fluid inside these can impart unwanted flavours into your cigar. Instead, we recommend using a blue flame jet lighter as these burn odorless or going the traditional route and using matches.
The final bit of knowledge before enjoying your cigar is storing it correctly. Humidity and temperature are the main aspects of storing and aging cigars, which is why our world class humidor has the highest-grade system running the room. While we don’t have the luxury of having this in our own home, we can still do things to store our personal collection. With your online purchase you can choose “Add On” humidity control. This is a small boveda pack will keep your humidity at the perfect percentage. You can either store your cigars inside the tobacco bags we provide with every order, although they do not look the best, they are airtight so will keep your cigars fresh for as long as possible.
You can also go the cigar aficionado route and buy a Humidor. Either our budget acrylic humidors or the world class, handmade, Daniel Marshall Humidors. No matter what your preference is, it is important that the space is air tight and has humidity control. Your first cigar isn’t guaranteed to be phenomenal, similar to wine or whiskey tasting, you will pick up on the main note, it takes like tobacco, like wine tastes like wine and whiskey tastes like whiskey. You may pick up on a few subtle flavour notes on your first cigar, most common are earth, chocolate, vanilla or coffee.
It typically isn’t until you further on your cigar journey that your palette truly expands, and you can pick up on more and more flavours in your cigar. If you love or hate your first cigar, it helps point us in the right direction for what your next cigar should be. The most helpful way to begin your cigar journey is with tasting packs. The beneficial thing our curated tasting packs is that they feature different cigars from different regions, all to help you best find what your palette enjoys.
Embarking on your cigar journey can be taunting, therefore we have made a tasting pack for beginners. The Initiation Pack was designed to help people starting their cigar journey in all aspects. This pack features our most popular light cigars that were mentioned earlier, as well as a cutter and a packet of our signature cigar matches. This is all enclosed in our acrylic humidor in order to keep your cigars nice and fresh using the provided boveda packs. You can use this humidor for years to come on your cigar journey, that is until you run out of space…