Question: I recently heard a friend say that they occasionally like to roll pipe tobacco in a cigar wrapper and smoke it. Can you really do that?

Answer: I once heard someone say they smoked a banana. Okay, I’ve actually heard that twice, from different people. So yes, you can indeed roll pipe tobacco in a cigar wrapper and smoke it.

I’ve heard of this practice before, but to be honest I have never tried it. It seems like a lot of effort to me, and I’ll admit to being a little lazy.

Question: How much nicotine does a cigar have? Is it more than a cigarette?

Answer: Since cigars are made of way more tobacco than a cigarette, it is easy to guess that they have a lot of more nicotine. In fact, most cigars have more nicotine than 14 cigarettes. A typical cigarette has 10 milligrams of nicotine. A typical cigar has 100 milligrams, and can easily double that number.

The main factor in determining how much nicotine a cigar has is its size and the type/color of its wrapper. A bigger cigar will have more nicotine (remember our statement about more tobacco equaling more nicotine?). Likewise, a darker wrapper will have more nicotine as well. The wrapper with the most nicotine, as you might imagine then, would be the Oscuro.

Question: This may be a corny question, but do people still smoke corn silk?

Answer: Yes, I guess, they do. I have never done it, though I might after writing this article. A quick look around the web explains the process, which does not seem all that difficult. Oddly enough someone suggested that you let your kid smoke it as a safe alternative to cigarettes, and somehow that just seems wrong.

Anyway, there are several ways to approach smoking corn silk. All of them involve stripping the “silk” from a piece of corn (the silk is not the green wrapper…it’s the yellow silky part between the wrapper and the piece of corn). After that you can dry it in the over for a while. I’d suggest wrapping it in foil to do so, otherwise it might just catch on fire.

After that you can either chop it up and slap it in your pipe (?) or you can roll it like you would tobacco. Reading back what I just wrote, I am not sure how corn silk burns; it looks like it would burn the same way your hair might burn, so I am going to insert this disclaimer here: If you have to smoke corn silk – and let’s face it, you do have to smoke it – then research how to do it, and be weary of how it burns. That is all.

Conclusion

Well, that concludes this episode of the Puff FAQ. I hope it was informative for you as it was for me. If you have any thoughts or ideas that differ than my own, shoot us a line. And if you try out the corn silk cigar or the pipe tobacco cigar, let me know as well. I’m curious enough to ask you to tell me about it, but not curious enough to actually do it.

Till next time…