Cigar 101

A cigar is a tightly rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the smoker's mouth. The English cigar comes from the Spanish cigarro, which in turn derives from the Mayan word for tobacco, siyar; see the entry for cigarro at the Spanish Royal Academy's online dictionary. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and the United States. Cigars rolled from Cuban tobacco are often popularly reputed to be of higher quality and better taste.

The indigenous inhabitants of the islands of the Caribbean Sea and Mesoamerica have smoked cigars since as early as the 10th century, as evidenced by the discovery of a ceramic vessel at a Mayan archaeological site in Uaxactún, Guatemala. The vessel was decorated with the painted figure of a man smoking a primitive cigar. Explorer Christopher Columbus is generally credited with the introduction of smoking to Europe.

Two of Columbus's crewmen during his 1492 journey, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, are said to have disembarked in Cuba and taken puffs of tobacco wrapped in maize husks, thus becoming the first European cigar smokers.

Around 1592, the Spanish galleon San Clemente brought 50 kilograms (110 lb) of Cuban tobacco seed to the Philippines over the Acapulco-Manila trade route. The seed was then distributed among the Roman Catholic missions, where the clerics found excellent climates and soils for growing high-quality tobacco on Philippine soil.

In the 19th century, cigar smoking was common, while cigarettes were still comparatively rare. The cigar business was an important industry, and factories employed many people before mechanized manufacturing of cigars became practical. Many modern cigars, as a matter of prestige, are still rolled by hand: some boxes bear the phrase totalmente a mano, "totally by hand" or hecho a mano, "made by hand".

Cigars are composed of three types of tobacco leaves, whose variations determine smoking and flavor characteristics:

Wrappers

A cigar's outermost leaves, or wrapper, come from the widest part of the plant. The wrapper determines much of the cigar's character and flavor, and as such its color is often used to describe the cigar as a whole. Colors are designated as follows, from lightest to darkest:

Claro – light tan or yellowish. Indicative of shade-grown tobacco.
Colorado – reddish-brown (also called Rosado or "Corojo").
Colorado Claro – mid-brown; particularly associated with tobacco grown in the Dominican Republic or in Cuba.
Colorado Maduro – dark brown; particularly associated with Honduran or Cuba-grown tobacco.
Double Claro – very light, slightly greenish (also called Candela, American Market Selection or jade); achieved by picking leaves before maturity and drying quickly; often grown in Connecticut.
Maduro – dark brown to very dark brown.
Natural – light brown to brown; generally sun-grown.
Oscuro – a.k.a. "Double Maduro", black, often oily in appearance; mainly grown in Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil, Mexico, and Connecticut, USA.

Fillers

The majority of a cigar is made up of fillers, wrapped-up bunches of leaves inside the wrapper. Fillers of various strengths are usually blended to produce desired cigar flavors. In the cigar industry this is refered to as a "blend". Many cigar manufacturers pride themselves in constructing the perfect blend(s) that will give the smoker the most enjoyment of cigar. The more oils present in the tobacco leaf, the stronger (less dry) the filler. Types range from the minimally flavored Volado taken from the bottom of the plant, through the light-flavored Seco (dry) taken from the middle of the plant, to the strong Ligero from the upper leaves exposed to the most sunlight. Fatter cigars of larger gauge hold more filler, with greater potential to provide a full body and complex flavor. When used, Ligero is always folded into the middle of the filler because it burns slowly.

Fillers can be either long or short; long filler uses whole leaves and is of a better quality, while short filler, also called "mixed", uses chopped leaves, stems, and other bits. Recently some manufacturers have created what they term "medium filler" cigars. They use larger pieces of leaf than short filler without stems, and are of better quality than short filler cigars. Short filler cigars are easy to identify when smoked since they often burn hotter and tend to release bits of leaf into the smoker's mouth. Long filled cigars of high quality should burn evenly and consistently. Also available is a filler called "sandwich" (sometimes "Cuban sandwich") which is a cigar made by rolling short leaf inside long outer leaf. If a cigar is completly constructed (filler, binder and wrapper) of tobacco from only one country, it is refered to in the cigar industry as a "puro" which in spanish means "pure".

Binders

Binders are elastic leaves used to hold together the bunches of fillers.

Cigars are commonly categorized by the size and shape of the cigar, which together are known as the vitola.
The size of a cigar is measured by two dimensions: its ring gauge (its diameter in sixty-fourths of an inch) and its length (in inches). For example, most non-Cuban robustos have a ring gauge of approximately 50 and a length of approximately 5 inches. Robustos which are of Cuban origin always have a ring gauge of 50 and a length of 4 ⅞ inches.

Common Names For Cigar Sizes

An excellent visual aid is provided below, along with a ruler to measure length.
You can carry this with you to help in identification.