Cigar Tips: The Puff Top 20

Written by James Payne

Friday, 19 February 2010

Tags:
•tobacco faqs	•tobacco tips and tricks

Article Index
1. Cigar Tips: The Puff Top 20
2. Flash Burn
3. Tip Number 5

Page 1 of 3

People these days (that’s you) are big into lists. Top five this, Greatest ten that. Puff is usually the leader, setting smoking trends and blazing a trail across the tobacco fields of yor. And we have had our own share of lists. But we do not have a list of Top 10 Smoking Tips. Not even a list of top five. What we do have though, is mathematical skills, and those skills tell us that 20 is larger than 10, and since we all know bigger is better, I am here to present you with Puff’s Top 20 Cigar Tips.

I hope you are wearing a helmet, because these top 20 are going to blow your mind, and Jorge the janitor will not be pleased if he has to clean up the mess! All kidding aside, these twenty – let’s call them suggestions – are designed for both the amateur and pro alike. Hopefully they will help you enjoy your smoking experience a little more. If you have your own, we encourage you to make this an interactive event and post some of your own Do’s and Don’ts. There is plenty of room on this bandwagon!

Without further ado – the Top 20:

Tip # 1: Do Not Inhale

I know – this isn’t as earth shattering or mysterious as Don’t Feed Them After Midnight, or Never, EVER Get Them Wet. But you would be surprised with the sheer volume of people that believe cigar smoker’s inhale their smoke. I did before I started smoking, and I would wager many of you did too. So the next time you light up and someone asks how you can inhale all that smoke, give them the Bill Clinton and set them straight – I didn’t inhale.

Tip # 2: Keeping an Even Burn

There are several factors that contribute to your cigar burning unevenly. They range from poor construction to the cigar not being lit, a particularly windy day, or you being a maniac and puffing away like a maniac.

You hear all sorts of advice on how to fix an unevenly burning cigar. Preventative maintenance is probably your best bet, but if it happens (and it will), you have a couple of options. For starters, you can set the cigar aside for a few and let it relax. Usually the burn will even out. The other option I use is to slowly roll or rotate the cigar so that the part that is uneven is on the bottom. Why it works on uneven burns, I am not certain, but by some magic it does.

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Re: Cigar Tips 3 & 5 - My experience is that an uneven burn usually results in a less than pleasant (and sometimes nasty) smoke. While I agree that letting a cigar rest and even itself out is a good way to correct an uneven burn, that doesn't always work. Or, I just don't have all day to spend on a cigar that isn't burning well on one side. I have used the flash burn many times with great success, allowing for the cigar to cool down once I've fixed the problem. Another issue is that there may be a mass of tobacco that is too compacted; rather than burn nicely it just smolders and makes the cigar taste nasty. It usually becomes evident when you tap off the ash and discover a hard projection that just isn't burning cleanly, and continues to be there as you smoke the cigar. While this doesn't always work, I have many times successfully broken the mass loose, purged the cigar, then relit if to find a totally different and far more enjoyable smoke. Sometimes a cigar is just a stinker, but my experience is that a bad tasting cigar is usually a cigar that is too damp, too dry, too hot or isn't burning evenly. Not much you can do to fix too damp or too dry (with a cigar you are already smoking). Too hot is a simple fix - slow down! Correcting an uneven burn I believe is imperative for a satisfying smoke. And never, ever try to smoke a cigar on a windy day - you're always going to be disappointed with the results. I'm just sayin' . . . .

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0 # kicker — Dannyboy 2010-02-25 11:57

For #5, it works better if you hold your butane lighter to the foot of the cigar and then blow thru the cigar causing the flame to blow outward, not sure why, but it works pretty well

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0 # bands — Paul Harwood 2010-03-10 08:41

Far too many non-Cuban cigars have huge ornate bands which occupy too much real estate on the cigar. Some seem to actually have the function of keeping the wrapper intact, and when you try to remove these, you tear the wrapper. Would like to see more Cuban-style labels like Tatuaje. The smoker should also be able to slide them off the cigar without wrapper damage.

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0 # #2 — bmp 2010-05-25 01:19

For #2, I've heard that rotating the section of the cigar that isn't burning as fast to the bottom works because the smoke, which obviously rises, isn't there to obstruct or reduce the burning.

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