Cigar World Education
From beginners to experts, we have educational content nearly anyone can find useful.
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The Best Time To Smoke a Cigar
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Best Of
At Cigar World, we’re always talking about the best tobacco blends or the best growing regions, even the best drink pairings for cigars.
The 10 Best Earthy Cigars for 2022
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Best Of
When we talk about the tasting notes of many premium cigars, you’ll find countless smokers, reviewers as well as brands mentioning earthy flavors.
The Best Seasoning For Summer Grilling
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Nothing beats a summer cookout. Friends and family gathered around the fire, enjoying a beverage and possibly a premium hand rolled cigar.
5 Best Summer Beers & Cigar Pairings
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If there’s one thing that’s synonymous with summer, it’s kicking back with friends and family for an ice cold beer.
Deep Dive: CAO Flavours
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Cigars 101
If CAO is known for anything, it’s for passionately creating premium cigars with the world’s best tobaccos.
The Best Cigar of the Month Clubs
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If you’ve ever found yourself struggling to make decisions when you’re shopping for cigars or if you’re always looking to try new cigars, you may want to think about joining a cigar of the month club.
The Most Patriotic Cigars for the 4th of July
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Best Of
The days are getting longer, the temps hotter. You know what that means, the 4th of July is coming!
How to Make a Perfect Manhattan
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Cigars 101
When talking about finding the perfect pairing between beverage and a cigar, there are very few drinks that are mentioned more than the Manhattan.
Top Rated Sweet Cigars For 2022
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Cigars 101
Sweet cigars can sometimes get a bad rap, and we’re not talking about the wrapper construction.
5 Must Visit Wineries For Cigar Smokers
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Cigars 101
Out of all the beverages that pair brilliantly with cigars, we very rarely talk about wine.
Deep Dive: Cohiba Serie M
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Cigars 101
A little more than a year ago, Cohiba released a new cigar that became a number of firsts for the brand.
The Best Summer Spirits & Cigar Pairing
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Best Of
If summer is about anything it’s about kicking back with friends and family and enjoying good times.
Mix Up a Good Time: CAO Flathead V660 Carb X Gold Rush
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Cigars 101
CAO is back to #MixUpAGoodTime the best way they know how—with another badass pairing. This one will have you busting out the bourbon and a Flathead, just in time for National Bourbon Day.
5 Top-Rated High-Tech Large Humidors
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Keep your cigars fresh & make a statement with the best high-tech large humidors!
Deep Dive: Cohiba Comador
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Cigars 101
If you’re familiar with Cohiba, then you know the name and that little red dot are synonymous with luxury.
Top-Rated Corojo Cigars
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Best Of
Corojo tobacco is one of the most unique and legendary tobacco seeds in the cigar industry. Perfected in the 1940’s by famed tobacco grower Diego Rodriguez, Corojo was the incredible result of taking the famed Criollo strain and crossing it with Indonesian Sumatra.
The Best Places To Smoke a Cigar
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Best Of
From the course to your backyard, our latest blog explores the best places to smoke a cigar.
Honduran Tobacco
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Cigars 101
Learn about Honduran tobacco and the regions where tobacco is grown. Discover some of the best cigars with Honduran tobacco.
10 Best Grilling Accessories of 2022
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Best Of
Get the must-have tools for every griller with Cigar World’s best grilling accessories!
8: Storing Cigars
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Seed to Cigar
Storing cigars correctly will preserve them for years to come. Find out what you need to know about this best practice here.
7: Banding & Boxing Cigars
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Seed to Cigar
For the most part, cigars look a lot alike. Sure, there are certain cigar oddities –– such as excessively long cigars or cigars that come in bizarre shapes. But, generally speaking, a majority of cigars share a similar size, shape, and color. If you were to walk into a cigar shop, pick a cigar at random and remove the band, it would be incredibly difficult for anyone –– even an experienced cigar smoker –– to identify the stick with any degree of accuracy.
4: Sorting & Grading Tobacco
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Seed to Cigar
Unlike other massive manufacturing undertakings, which are often completely automated (or nearly so), the majority of the work done to create a cigar is carried out by human beings with their hands. A big reason why noticeable errors don’t occur more regularly during cigar production is the sorting and grading process.
While all tobacco leaves share certain characteristics, not all tobacco leaves are suitable for use in a cigar. Quality sorting and grading guarantees the integrity of the cigar –– from appearance to taste to performance.
5: Rolling Tobacco
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Seed to Cigar
Every premium cigar you’ve ever had was rolled by hand. As opposed to cigarettes and machine-wrapped cigars, premium cigars are crafted by hand by trained artisans. The art of rolling a cigar is a time-honored tradition that can take years to master. While we’ll take a quick look at this process here, remember that it is much easier said than done.
Properly rolling a cigar ensures that the flavors complement each other well, that the cigar burns evenly, and that the draw is measured and smooth. You can tell when a cigar has been rolled properly by the quality of the burn, the solid development of the ash, and balance of the draw. Even slight imperfections in the rolling process can compromise the integrity of a cigar, which is why professional cigar rollers are held in such high esteem and train so vigorously to hone their skills.
6: Aging Tobacco
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Seed to Cigar
By modern standards, cigars are time-intensive products. It can take years for master blenders to transform tobacco seeds into premium cigars. Indeed, multiple stages of the cultivation process require serious patience. It takes months to grow the seedlings, months to harvest the plant, months to cure the tobacco leaves, and months to ferment them. And after all that, cigars need at least one month to simply “rest” before they’re shipped to retailers.
However, aging is a critical component of cigar production. You can’t “rush” tobacco development, and certain cigars – like Maduros – simply require lots of time to achieve their desired color, texture, and flavor.
3: Curing & Fermentation
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Seed to Cigar
The character of a cigar is determined by two types of factors: natural influences and man-made ones. Natural factors that affect tobacco development include elements like the weather, the composition of the soil, and the very nature of the tobacco plant itself. There’s not much a blender can do about the climate in Ecuador or the soil in Nicaragua.
However, other influences –– like curing and fermentation –– are under direct control of master cigar blenders. This allows for a great range of creativity and exploration. Indeed, the curing and fermentation process is (arguably) the stage in cigar production when the flavors and qualities that come to define an individual cigar start to take shape.