A little history about our Cigars

On January 11, 1813, the first tobacco seeds were sown by the famous Don Marin. The Hawaiians then began to grow tobacco, but only on a small scale for personal use. It wasn't until 1851, on the island of Kauai that the first systematic attempts were made to grow tobacco in the Hanalei Valley. The first actual shipment of Hawaiian cigars, consisting of 10,000 “Hawaiian Regalias,” was sent to a Honolulu firm in 1853. It was soon followed by a second shipment of 20,000. Not long after this an infestation of cut worm devastated the tobacco crops, destroying whole fields in just a few days. Another attempt was made in 1863, but again disaster struck when high winds completely flattened the plants. It wasn’t until 1904 that tobacco was again grown in Hawaii. The industry flourished off and on until 1929 when a financial panic ruined the tobacco market.

Today, Hawaiian Royal Trading Company is reviving the art of tobacco growing, combining imported tobacco with Hawaii’s own unique, locally grown crops to bring you a cigar that is both mild and distinctive in flavor.

More good cigar facts

Sigmund Freud once said that a cigar is just a cigar, but cigar smoking today is also about elegance, simplicity and ease. The slow, cultivated ritual of choosing, cutting and lighting a premium cigar provides the period of tranquility in any harried day. The close contact with an artifact that must pass through the careful hands of more 100 people from harvest to packing gives an increasingly rare kind of feeling. And the exhalation of thick blue clouds of cigar smoke yields a subtle and restorative pleasure.

Cigars heighten the timeless, and often forgotten, joy of sitting down in a comfortable chair and just talking. Cigars also enhance unhurried time alone when one can simply savor the moment.

Cigar smoking not only celebrates both sublime and precious occasions, but - as Zino Davidoff used to note - "like the smoke that rises from the gray ash, fleeting… unforgettable…" moments as well.

Some claim that the word cigar (Spanish cigarro) derives from the Spanish cigaral or cicada. The actual derivation, however, is from the Mayan words cig-sigan meaning "smoking", and sikar meaning "to smoke". Early cigars were wrapped in palm of maize leaves, but the cigar as we know it - tobacco leaf wrapped in tobacco leaf - was first created in Seville in 17th century Spain.

The origin of the cigar band, according to legend, dates to the regal fingers of Russia's Catherine the Great, more than two centuries ago. It is said that she ordered her cigars cloaked in silk to protect her hands from tobacco stains. In imitation of the Queen, silk cigar bands were adopted; the cigar band, now of a colorful though more modes paper, was born.

Several U.S. Presidents have known the pleasure of a good cigar. John Adams and John Quincy Adams were fond of cigars, as was James Madison, the first President to smoke in the White House after it was rebuilt from ashes following the War of 1812. Andrew Jackson and his wife smoked cigars together. General and later President Ulysses S. Grant was said to smoke 10 stogies a day during his successful Civil War campaign. In the early part of the 20th century, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover all indulged in the Presidential cigar habit.

While President Bill Clinton has been seen with a cigar on the golf course from time to time, the last regular cigar smoker in the Oval Office was John F. Kennedy. Just prior to signing the embargo on all Cuban products entering the United States in 1961, he entreated his press secretary Pierre Salinger to gather as many H.Upmann petit coronas - Kennedy-s favorites - as he could find. Salinger collected 1 100 before Kennedy signed the decree.

Perhaps the most visually memorable cigar-smoking political figure was Winston Churchill, who led England throughout World War II with a thick cigar constantly between his teeth. It is estimated that Churchill smoked more than 250 000 cigars during lifetime.

Cigar smoking and great literature have often gone hand in hand. William Thackeray punctuated each writing day with several cigars. Mark Twain smoked constantly (about three cigars an hour, according to his own reckoning) and once wrote famously, "If I cannot smoke in heaven, then I shall not go." Nobel prize-winning poet and writer Rudyard Kipling penned, the English language's most famous "cigar" poem about a man who chooses cigars over his fiancée, saying, "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."

Great women writers including Gertrude Stein, Amy Lowell, and Colette also have extolled the virtues of the cigar. Lucile Aurore Dupin Dudevant, better known as George Sand, smoked as many as seven cigars a day. She once said, "A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images."

Entertainers - and practically comedians - have always had a soft spot for the cigar. Cigars figured prominently in several Charlie Chaplin films. W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, and Jimmy Durante were well-known smokers, and more recently Bill Cosby, Chevy Case and David Letterman have been known to light up.

In Hollywood, the cigar currently has a high profile. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Demi Moore, Danny DeVito, Jack Nickolson, Sharon Stone, Robert DeNiro, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Spacey, Madonna, Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, Gregory Hines, Harvey Keitel, Tom Selleck, Ray VanWagner, Linda Evangelista, and the late Raul Julia have all proudly made their passion for fine cigars public knowledge.

We are in the middle of a cigar boom, in particular a premium cigar boom. In 1992, the United States imported only 99 million handmade cigars. By 1996, this had risen to more than 275 million cigars, including an estimated 6 million that were made in Cuba, purchased abroad, and smuggled into the States.

From planting to packing, it takes between two and three years to create a box of premium cigars. Not surprisingly, prices have skyrocketed during the past several years. Vintage cigars are attracting similar interest. In 1996, Peter de Savary of the Carnegie Club at Scotland's Skibo Castle paid a whopping $28,570 at a Christie's auction for 163 of the world's oldest Havana cigars, dating back to the late 1850s.

The Golden Age of the American cigar was surely the half-century between 1870 and 1920, when American firms produced more than 1.5 million brands of cigars. In 1900, it was estimated that four out of every five men (as well as a healthy percentage of women) smoked cigars. Nearly 150,000 cigar factories dotted the country, rolling domestic and imported tobacco into 3,500 shapes and sizes.

Choosing a cigar

It's quite understandable that walking into a cigar store with its myriad offerings can be daunting. However your local tobacconist should provide you with little gentle guidance and hasten your cigar education. Various publications like Cigar Aficionado, Smoke and others provide thorough descriptions of particular brands and sizes. The important thing - especially for the novice - is not to find and buy the most expensive cigars of to develop a 400-word vocabulary describing their taste, but rather to try a selection of cigars ("singles", as they are called in the trade). Find ones that deliver satisfaction time and again before investing in a full box of smokes.

"When it comes to choosing the right cigar, there's only one expert, and that's you!" ©, Joel Sherman (the son of Nat Sherman).

The Global cigar

First, consider the cigar's country of origin. Knowing where the cigar comes from can give you a hint of what the cigar is like. Speaking generally, the cigars from the United States or the Philippines tend to be quite mild. Jamaican and Dominican cigars are generally lighter tasting. Hondurans are more full-bodied and spicy. Nicaraguans are medium-bodied and sweet. Brazilians are heavier and spicy. Cubans - again speaking generally - are medium- to full-bodied and can be almost chocolaty. Mexican cigars, however, vary widely.

Brand Loyalty

Each brand offers several different sizes and shapes, but in general (and of course there are significant exceptions) the quality and taste of a successful brand will be consistent. For example, most Macanudos are light and spicy, most Punches more full bodied and nutty.

The Wrapper

The wrapper - the thin, outermost layer of the cigar - has a disproportionate effect on its taste. The lighter the color of the cigar's wrapper, the lighter the smoke. Similarly, the darker the wrapper, the more intense the cigar's flavor. Wrapper colors vary from canadela or claro claro (almost greenish) to oscuro (a very dark, black coffee color). A well-made cigar should have a fine-veined wrapper with no nicks or cuts that may lead to an uneven burn. Any cigar with a cracked or broken wrapper should be rejected. One should inspect a cigar or a box of cigars before purchasing them. Pinch cigars lightly to ensure that they are most and well-constructed. Avoid rolling them roughly between your fingers or aggressively sniffing them, since over handling can cause damage that makes cigars unsaleable.

The Size

The final consideration in choosing a cigar is its size. A cigar's length is usually from four inches to eight inches, although some special smokes are as long as 18 inches. The cigar's girth or ring gauge is signified in increments of 1/64". A ring gauge of 32 indicates a cigar is ½ (32/64) inch in diameter. A ring gauge of 50 reflects a cigar 50/64" in diameter. The longer and thicker the cigar, the cooler its smoke. Larger cigars also allow the roller to use a greater variety of tobacco, enhancing the cigar's flavor. Larger cigars tend to be more expensive, so cigar manufacturers use their finest wrapper leaves and allow only their most experienced rollers to construct them. Not surprisingly they tend to be better made.

Storing the Cigars

You should always keep in mind that cigars are a natural, perishable product and must be stored appropriately at 70o Fahrenheit and 70% humidity. The lower humidity of most homes and offices will dry out a cigar in an hour or two. Higher temperatures and humidity encourage mold and the larvae of tobacco beetles. A box or cellophane wrapper may preserve a cigar for a few days. A sealed tube may protect it longer. If you do not plan on smoking your purchases immediately, however, you should invest in a humidor.

Enjoying a Good Cigar

Enjoying a good cigar takes time. The slow ritual of cutting and lighting a cigar before smoking serves to focus attention away from stress of worry to the experience at hand. How exactly to conduct this "ritual" is the matter of some debate and personal reference, but its conduct does have an impact on the quality of your smoke.

You must first cut the head - the closed end - of the cigar. This will allow you to draw on the cigar smoothly and easily. Make a quick, clean cut, no more than 1/4" from the end. This preserves the integrity of the cigar's cap, a piece of wrapper tobacco cut and placed specifically to close the cigar. If you slice the entire cap off, pieces of the cigar's filler may flake into your mouth while smoking. Worse, the cigar may unravel. Single-bladed, hand-sized guillotines are perfectly serviceable, thought more expensive double-bladed models will provide a cleaner, more consistent result.

Once the cigar is cut, do not run a flame down the cigar or lick it from end to end. These practices date to a time near the turn of the last century when cigars were often ill-made, and manufacturers employed foul vegetable gums to keep the wrapper from unraveling. Licking ensured that a cigar remained bound while smoking. The flame burned off the gums before smoking. Neither technique is necessary today.

Similarly, in days gone by, the cigar band often helped to keep the cigar intact. Removing the band was a risky business. Today it is a matter of taste. In England, for example, leaving the band on is considered ostentatious. In the Unite States, there is no hard and fast tradition. If you do want to remove the band, however it is probably wise to wait until the heat of the cigar loosens it slightly so it can slip off with no ill effects to the wrapper.

Then the process of lighting up comes

Wooden matches or butane lighters are preferred for lighting a cigar. Paper matches do not burn long enough, and gas lighters allow the scent of kerosene to invade the cigar. Some traditionalists favor cedar spills (strips of cedar broken off the insides of cigar boxes), which are aromatic, but may also flame a bit uncontrollably. Whichever method you prefer, hold the foot or open end of the cigar above the flame at a 30-40o angle and rotate the cigar slowly until the cigar is warm, and the entire rim is lit. Then place the cigar in your mouth and puff gently, pulling the flame across the foot. Avoid drawing on the cigar with the foot placed in the heart of the flame. This may overheat the cigar, and scorched tobacco loses some of its complex flavor. With the foot fully lit, blow lightly on it or swirl the cigar gently to encourage the ember to spread. Take time to enjoy the initial light swirls of burning tobacco. Before puffing heartily on the cigar, blow out through the cigar to ensure that any carbon or other impurities developed during lighting are not sucked through the cigar to taint the rest of your smoke.

Some more advice

Do not inhale cigar smoke; it is quite strong and will induce choking and nausea. Puff gently and take the smoke in, allow it to coat the inside of your mouth, and then blow it out. As you smoke, the ash of a well-rolled cigar will grow to some length. Resist the temptation to knock it right off, as this ash protects the ember and encourages the cigar to burn evenly. Most well-aged cigar tobacco will produce a grey or whitish-grey ash with a thin carbon ring where the ash meets the unburned portion of the cigar. A blacker ash often reflects an overly moist cigar.

Take your time while smoking. Sit back and relax. Consider the cigar and its characteristics as it burns or simply enjoy the smoke as it wafts around your conversation. If your cigar happens to go out, do not worry. Simply knock off the ash, blow through the cigar to clear it of any stale smoke, and re-light the cigar. To avoid unpleasant odors (and the wrath of anyone you may be sharing your living quarters with), dispose of cigar butts and ashes soon after smoking.

From Seed to Sale: Producing a Premium Cigar

Great tobacco is grown in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and even Connecticut, though most still acknowledge that Cuban tobacco is the finest in the world. Generally cultivated on small plots in the Vuelta Abajo area of the western province of Pinar del Rio, this tobacco flourishes in the region's reddish sandy loam. But whether in Cuba or in other parts of the world, the production of premium handmade cigars is a careful and time-consuming process.

Special plants called corojos, which are grown beneath gauze sheets, produce the thin, paper-smooth leaves used in wrappers of fine quality, hand-made cigars. Each plant can yield as many as 32 wrappers. The tobacco used to produce the rest of the cigar (the binder and filler) is grown in the full sun. The filler of larger high quality cigars is generally blended from the aromatic top or ligero leaves of the plant, the lighter middle or seco leaves, and the coarse bottom or volado leaves, which are used for bulk and for their burning qualities.

Once harvested, all tobacco leaves must be cured, stacked and fermented, cooled, and sorted according to color, size and texture, fermented a second time, baled, and only then shipped to the tobacco factory for rolling. This extensive process reduces the levels of acidity, tar, and nicotine in the leaves, making cigar tobacco much more flavorful than cigarette tobacco.

At the cigar factory. Expert rollers transform the well-aged tobacco leaves into handmade cigars. These rollers or torcedores spend as many as 10 years in training before earning the right to create a brand's premium smokes. The torcedor begins the process by laying two to four filler leaves end to end, then crimps them together into two halves that resemble closed fans. These are called the "bunch". The leaves must be evenly distributed to ensure a proper draw. The bunch is then wrapped in a binder leaf, placed in a wooden cigar mold, and shaped further by a bunch press.

Any surplus leaf is trimmed off. The torcedor then fashions a wrapper leaf to size and carefully rolls it around the bunch. A dab of colorless and odorless vegetable gum secures the wrapper. The cap, a small coinsized patch of tobacco, is affixed to the head of the cigar to help secure the wrapper. Finally, the open end or foot is created with a quick decisive cut. A talented torcedor can make as many as 200 meduim-sized cigars in a day, though 60-90 is the average for larger, more expensive sizes.

After rolling, cigars are fumigated against potential pests, and some of each roller's output is tested for quality. Tasters or catadores work in the morning, sipping sugarless tea between cigars to clean their palates. After passing inspection, batches of cigars are placed in cooling cabinets to remove any excess moisture and to stop additional fermentation. When ready, cigars are separated into different color grades - 65 in all.

Finally, cigars of a similar grade are gathered, banded, placed in a box, and sealed, ensuring that they arrive at your local tobacconist fresh and ready to enjoy.

The Art of the Cigar

The primary appeal of cigars is in their smoking, but thanks to a long tradition of point-of-purchase advertising, we can also enjoy the esthetic allure of cigar bands and cigar box labels.

While silk bands date to the days of Catherine the Great, paper cigar bands were first used commercially during the 1830s to identify cigars as real Cubans, rather than the cheap knock-offs then being passed off as the real thing in Europe. When the bulk of the world's cigar production moved to the United States during the late 19th century, colorful bands were used to differentiate the hundreds of cigar brands offered for sale. Collecting these bands became something of a fashion, especially after the American Cigar Company began offering premiums in exchange for collected bands of their cigars. For 600 bands, for example, you can receive a subscription to Scientific American magazine; for 179,950, you could acquire a baby grand piano. The derogatory term guttersnipe derived from the practice of poor children scrounging city streets in search of these bands and the gifts their redemption brought. Turn-off-the-century bands and ashtrays are now collector's items.

The beautiful 12-colored lithograph labels used on cigar boxes have also attracted collector's interest. Originally, cigars were bundled in pigs' bladders, often with a sprig of vanilla to improve the scent of the package.

While cigar bands and labels cannot be considered "high art", they are examples of commercial artisanship and advertising, beautiful artifacts of the first golden era of cigar production in the United States.

Today, in a new golden age of the cigar, we can practice the great pleasure of cigar smoking, armed with a knowledge of the history, manufacture, quality, variety, and, yes, the high art of cigars and cigar smoking. It's time to sit back, light up and enjoy.

Cigar Terms

Wrappers

• Candela or Claro Claro
  A green shade of wrapper created through heat-curing and providing a very mild taste, this leaf may also be called A.M.S. (American Market Selection) as it used to be very popular in the States.
  
  
• Claro
  A yellowish tan leaf with a neutral, unassuming flavor.
  
  
• Maduro
  Literally "ripe", a maduro is a chocolate brown colored wrapper with a rich full flavor. It is also known as S.M.S. or Spanish Market Selection.
  
  
• Oscuro
  This almost black wrapper is quite rare and is generally found only on Brazilian cigars.
  
  

Sizes and Shapes

• Straight-Sided Cigars
  
  

  Name	Length	Ring Size
  Churchill	7"	48
  Corona	5-1/2"	42-44
  Corona Gorda	5-5/8"	46
  Double Corona	7-1/2-8"	49-52
  Lonsdale	6-1/4"	42-44
  Panatela	5-7-1/2"	34-38
  Petit Corona	4-1/2"	40-42
  Robusto	5-5-1/2"	50

  
  
  
• Shaped Cigars
  
  
  • Bellicoso (5-1/2", 52)
    Originally a short pyramid, it is now often a corona or corona gorda with a tapered head.
    
    
  • Culebra (5-6", 3 x 38)
    Literally "snake", the culebra is actually three panatelas braided and banded together. Each is smoked separately.
    
    
  • Diadema (8", 60+)
    Closed on both ends, this massive torpedo-shaped cigar broadens significantly from head to foot.
    
    
  • Perfecto (4-1/2-9", 38-48)
    Also closed at both ends with a rounded head, this cigar is shaped with a bulge in the middle.
    
    
  • Pyramid/Torpedo (6-7", 40/52-54)
    While both boast a tapered head, the pyramid differs from a torpedo in that the pyramid's foot (or smoking end) is cut, while the foot of the torpedo is closed.
    
    

Parts of the Cigar

• Head - the end of the cigar you hold in your mouth.
  
  
• Foot - the end of the cigar you light.
  
  
• Cap - small piece of tobacco that covers the head and ensures the integrity of the wrapper when the cigar is cut.
  
  
• Wrapper - thin, elastic leaf that covers a cigar.
  
  
• Binder - the leaf under the wrapper that holds the filler in place and ensures an even burn.
  
  
• Filler - the tobacco leaves that make up the bulk of the "inside" of a cigar. In hand-made cigars, the filler is folded like a fan. In a machine-made cigars, it is often ground like a cigarette. There are three types of filler leaf:
  
  
  • Ligero
    Aromatic top leaves of the tobacco plant used for flavor.
    
    
  • Seco
    Lighter, middle leaves of the plant, used mostly for bulk.
    
    
  • Volado
    Coarser bottom leaves used for bulk and slow burning qualities.
    
    

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