So, you just bought a cigar and it says “Maduro”.

What’s that mean?

From Cigar Parts:

Wrapper Types

Double Claro (also called Candela or American Market Select) – green to greenish brown. The color is achieved by picking the leaf before it reaches maturity, and then drying it rapidly. Very mild, almost bland with very little oil.

Claro – Light tan. Usually this is the color of shade grown tobacco. Connecticut Shade wrappers are said to be some of the finest in the world. Shade grown tobacco is grown under large canopies to protect the tobacco from harsh sunlight. Neutral flavor and smooth smoking.

Natural (see also English Market Selection) – Light brown to brown. These are most often sun grown, meaning they are not protected by canopies like shade grown leaves. Fuller bodied flavor than shade grown leaves, but still very smooth.

Colorado Claro – Mid-brown, tawny. (For example, brands such as Dominican Partagas or Fuentes, using Camaroon wrappers.)

Colorado – Reddish dark brown, aromatic. A cigar with this wrapper tastes robust and rich.

Colorado Maduro – Dark brown, medium strength, slightly more aromatic the maduro. Usually gives a rich flavor, as found in many of the best Honduran cigars.

Maduro – Dark brown to very dark brown. These usually have more texture and veining than the lighter wrappers. They are often described as oily looking, with stronger taste – sweet to some palates with a unique aroma.

Oscuro – Very dark brown or almost black. They are the strongest tasting of all wrappers. These wrappers tend to be from Nicaragua, Brazil, Mexico, or Connecticut Broadleaf.

English Market Selection – A broad designation refering to brown cigars (anything other double claro essentially). The darker the color, the sweeter and stronger the flavor and the greater the oil and sugar content of the wrapper. Darker wrappers normally spend longer on the plant or come from greater altitudes. The additional exposure to the sun at higher altitudes tends to enhance the production of oil (which protects the plant) and sugar (because of increased photosynthesis). Sure leaves are typically fermented for longer as well.

Don’t you feel better?

Now, go ahead and light up.

Being knowledgeable won’t make the cigar smoke any better, but knowledge is its own reward.

What is the best way to store your cigars?

There’s two schools of thought: wood and plastic. The article below favors a wood humidor (as do most places that sell such items).

From How to Store a Cigar:

Cigars must live in an environment, (warm and very humid); similar to where they were born and the best way to simulate that environment is with a humidor. A humidor will vary sizes from the small wooden boxes to the large wooden cabinets. Before purchasing a wooden humidor perform the “whoosh test” by lifting the lid about three inches, let it drop and listen for a “whoosh” of air escaping which prevents the lid from slamming. A “whoosh” means the humidor is crafted well enough to create a tight seal.

Another option, if for some reason you don’t want to purchase a nice wooden humidor, is to use a plastic container (Rubbermaid or Tupperware); however, plastic containers don’t allow your cigars to “breathe” and a modest amount of air flow is needed to help prevent mold and keeping your stogies fresh. Open the plastic container once a month to check for the proper moisture.

Cigars kept in a Ziploc bag are only good for a couple of weeks before they experience any ill effects. If you are looking for something similar with a greater lifespan, try our Fuente Humidor Bags for not only that freshness seal but also a scientifically engineered humidification packet.

Having a humidifier is also a good idea.

What about plastic?

In a book by the doctor who was the head of the Cuban cigar industry (it’s a small book and I couldn’t find it in my library), a plastic Tupperware container is touted. The doctor says that a air-tight plastic box was “the best way I’ve found to store cigars”.

Now that Cigar Bistro is up and running, I’ll have to run that book. It was small, but full of useful tips, pictures and personal cigar anecdotes.

Hope this information has been helpful.

image: http://www.adorini.com

Hours of smoking pleasure
House of Cigars
Wheeling, WV
Nov 16 2009

Rows of bundles of tasty cigars…
House of Cigars
Wheeling, WV
Nov 16 2009

Okay, this is more a “Beginner’s Guide to How to Light and Smoke a Cigar”.

BUT, you have to start somewhere, I suppose.

From Tips For Novices On How To Smoke Cigars:

Many novice smokers have embarrassed themselves trying to smoke a cigar with the same frantic, huff-and-puff energy that goes into cigarette smoking. But cigars aren’t cigarettes, any more than cheap beer is fine wine, and just as you’d never guzzle a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, you shouldn’t just inhale a cigar.

The site from which the article is quoted is named, oddly enough, “You Stop Smoking”?!?

Be that as it may, what follows are a few of the tips the article offers

ON LIGHTING A CIGAR

How to light? Steer clear of paper matches, which will only stay live long enough to light a small portion of the cigar. You need a full flame that will cover the entire head of the cigar. Wooden matches may work, though it’s recommended that you let the sulphur burn off the tip of the match before lighting.

Butane lighters are free of odor and taste and are the favorite method for many smokers, as are “torch” lighters. Whatever you prefer, make sure you turn the cigar as you light it (”turn and burn,” experienced smokers say), so that the entire cigar is lit. Some aficiandos believe it’s a bad idea to let the flame touch the cigar and prefer to use a lit cedar strip, but many American smokers argue that this is just a bit of unnecessary European pretension.

HOW TO SMOKE THE CIGAR

More from You Stop Smoking:

Inhaling the smoke is unnecessary and dangerous. Once again, cigars are not cigarettes. You pull the smoke into your mouth and, like a wine taster, allow its flavor to saturate your palate, without allowing the smoke into your lungs. For this reason, cigar smoking is more taste-oriented and less harmful to your health than cigarette-smoking.

The taste of the smoke varies depending on the tobacco type and the sorts of flavors added by the makers, as well as the age of the cigar, the conditions in which it’s been stored, and many other factors. Regardless, the taste is richer, fuller and subtler than that of cigarettes, and many people who don’t enjoy cigarette-smoking have found that they like the taste or odor of cigars.

More at the link above.

NOTE: Definitely agree with the “turn and burn” approach to lighting a cigar. If you take a few extra seconds to ensure the entire end of the cigar is burning, it saves a lot of grief later.

Two useful bits of information here though: how to light and smoke a cigar.

We always boiled it down to a few simple rules.
1-Make sure you have a cigar.
2-Make sure you have (or have the ability to bum) a lighter or match.
3-Fire it up!

Enjoy!

by Mondo Frazier
images:
* www.citizenofthemonth.com
* http://www.citycigarcompany.com
* womensmokingcigars.wordpress.com

From CNN Money– Prime Star Group Introduces Delizia Limited Cigars:

Prime Star Group, Inc. (OTCBB: PSGI) is pleased to announce that Delizia Limited, its wholly owned subsidiary, is launching a line of impeccably constructed premium long filler cigars. Prime Star Group’s Delizia Limited can produce between 250,000 to 400,000 cigars per month.

The company produces multiple sizes of premium cigars and focuses on the following:

– Connecticut Cigar
Size 8 – Churchill, Toro, Robusto, Torpedo, Petite Corona, Lancero,
Lonsdale
– Corojo Cigar
Size 7 – Churchill, Toro, Robusto, Lonsdale, Torpedo, Lancero
– Habano 2000
Size 7 – Churchill, Toro, Robusto, Torpedo, Lancero, Lonsdale

For Information, CONTACT:
for Prime Star Group, Inc. Public Relations
Dan Schall
(858) 240-7873
on the web at www.PrimeStarGroup.net

TWENTY QUOTES ABOUT TOBACCO & SMOKING

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
–Sigmund Freud

Enjoy your next smoke with the following 20 quotes about smoking, cigars, cigarettes, tobacco and the joys of smoking.

It is now proven, beyond a doubt, that smoking is a leading cause of statistics.
– Fletcher Knebel

Now the only thing I miss about sex is the cigarette afterward. Next to the first one in the morning, it’s the best one of all. It tasted so good that even if I had been frigid I would have pretended otherwise just to be able to smoke it.
–Florence King

A good cigar is like a beautiful chick with a great body who also knows the American League box scores.
–Max Klinger,
“Bug-Out” espisode of M*A*S*H, 1976

I used to smoke two packs a day and I just hate being a nonsmoker…. but I will never consider myself a nonsmoker because I always find smokers the most interesting people at the table.
–Michelle Pfeiffer

There are some circles in America where it seems to be more socially acceptable to carry a hand-gun than a packet of cigarettes.
–Katharine Whitehorn

Divine Tobacco.
–Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene, (bk. III, canto V, st. 32)

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
–Oscar Wilde,
The Picture of Dorian Gray

Sublime tobacco! which from east to west,
Cheers the tar’s labour or the Turkman’s rest;
Which on the Moslem’s ottoman divides
His hours, and rivals opium and his brides;
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand,
Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand:
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe
When tipp’d with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;…
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties – give me a cigar!
–Lord Byron,
The Island

To smoke a cigar through a mouthpiece is equivalent to kissing a lady through a respirator.
–The Smoker’s Guide

Tobacco and alcohol, delicious fathers of abiding friendships and fertile reveries.
–Luis Buñuel

Remember, if you smoke after sex you’re doing it too fast.
–Woody Allen

The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan!
– Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton,
Night and Morning (bk. I, ch. VI)

It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it hundreds of times.
–Mark Twain

Good food, good sex, good digestion, good sleep: to these basic animal pleasures, man has added nothing but the good cigarette.
–Mignon McLaughlin
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.
–Winston Churchill

Watching the smoke dance out of a cigarette is like watching a girl dance out of her dress.
–D.H. Mondfleur

I smoke ten to fifteen cigars a day. At my age I have to hold on to something.
–George Burns

A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.
–Rudyard Kipling, The Betrothed

Coffee and tobacco are complete repose.
–Turkish Proverb

Yes, social friend, I love thee well,
In learned doctor’s spite;
Thy clouds all other clouds dispel
And lap me in delight.
–Charles Sprague,
“To My Cigar”

[Originally published at DBKP as "Smoking Quotes: Twenty Quotes on Cigars, Cigarettes, Tobacco and the Joys of Smoking"

by Mondo Frazier
Sources:
* Quotations about Smoking and Tobacco
* TOBACCO
* Smoking Quotes
Images:
hsart.com
Rockestone
cigaraficionado.com

[ABOVE: The famous label used on the Marsh-Wheeling cigar box]

THE COUNTRY’S OLDEST CIGAR COMPANY

Marsh-Wheeling stogies are a unique type of cigar. They are both affordable and are a good cigar for everyday, knock-around smoking.

From Marsh-Wheeling:

Marsh Wheeling was founded by Mifflin M. Marsh in 1840. Located in Wheeling, West Virginia, it was the oldest cigar manufacturing company founded in the United States. After beginning production and sale from his home, Mr. Marsh developed the company and opened a factory first on Water Street and later on 12th Street between Water and Main. In 1908, the company opened the historic location at 905-915 Market Street.

M. Marsh & Son is most notably remembered for the Marsh Wheeling brand of stogies. The cigar’s famous box became a known staple of the tobacco industry.

A box also appeared in the movie The Green Mile as the home of Mr. Jangles, a mouse kept by one of the prisoners.

The Marsh Wheeling brand had a reputation for quality from coast to coast. The Marsh-Wheeling cigars got their name “stogie” because they were sold to the drivers of the wagons heading west on the National Road coming from the Conestoga Valley in PA. They were also sold to crews and passengers of the steamboats traveling down the Ohio River, which put in at the Wheeling wharf.

FAMOUS MARSH-WHEELING SMOKERS: Daniel Webster, Annie Oakley & P.T. Barnum.

[ABOVE: Annie Oakley, in between puffs on a Marsh-Wheeling]

Sadly, Marsh-Wheeling’s connection to its birthplace, Wheeling, WV came to an end in 2001. The Wheeling plant was closed and the company was bought by National Cigar, which moved production to Frankfort, Indiana. The Marsh-Wheeling building, just a block from the Wheeling suspension bridge remains for sale.

by Mondo Frazier
images:
* DBKP file
* drudge22.blogspot.com
* http://www.fcsutler.com
sources
* Marsh-Wheeling

DBKP’s Cigar Bistro is our corner where we will post about cigar care, maintenance, history, art, reviews, stories of interest, news and new products.

Give us a couple days and we’ll be up and running!