cigars

CIGAR
A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, 
Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and the Eastern United States.

Dominant manufacturers

Two firms dominate the cigar industry. Altadis, the world's largest cigar producer, produces cigars in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras, and has a 50% stake in Corporación Habanos in Cuba. It also makes cigarettes. Swedish Match, the second largest producer, produces cigars in Honduras, Belgium, Germany, Indonesia, the United States, and the Dominican Republic; it also makes chewing and pipe tobacco, snuff, lighters, and matches. Other manufacturers include General Cigar Co. and the Oliva Cigar Co. 

Composition
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. Over 100 wrapper shades are identified by manufacturers, but the even most common classifications are as follows, from lightest to 

Double Claro-
very light, slightly greenish (also called Candela, American 
Market Selection or jade); achieved by picking leaves 
before maturity and drying quickly, the color coming 
from retained green chlorophyll; formerly popular, now 
rare.

Claro

Very light tan or yellowish. Indicative of shade-grown 
tobacco.

Colorado Claro
medium brown, includes Natural and English Market 
Selection

Colorado 
Distinctive reddish-brown (also called Rosado or Corojo)

Colorado Maduro

Darker brown; often associated with African wrapper 
from Cameroon, and Honduran or Nicaraguan grown 
wrapper from Cuban seed.

Maduro

Very dark brown or black; primarily grown in 
Connecticut, Mexico, Nicaragua and Brazil.
Oscuro

Very black, (also called Double Maduro), often oily in 
appearance; has become more popular in the 2000s; 
mainly grown in Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil, Mexico, and 
Connecticut, USA.

In general, dark wrappers add a touch of sweetness, while light ones add a hint of dryness to the taste.

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 referred to as a "blend". Many cigar manufacturers pride themselves in constructing the perfect blend(s) that will give the smoker the most enjoyment. 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. However, this effect can be diminished because of the generally poorer burn characteristics of thicker cigars (greater than 50 ring gauge), and the fact that these cigars burn cooler. This can prevent the full spectrum of flavors from being easily detectable. 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 an d consistently. Also available is filler called "sandwich" (sometimes "Cuban sandwich") which is a cigar made by rolling short leaf inside long outer leaf. If a cigar is completely constructed (filler, binder and wrapper) of tobacco from only one country, it is referred 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. Essentially, binders are wrappers that are rejected because of holes, blemishes, discoloration, or excess veins.

Size and shape

World's largest cigar at the Tobacco and Matchstick Museum in Skansen, Stockholm, Sweden.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). In Cuba, next to Havana, there is a display of the world's longest rolled cigars.

Parejo
The most common shape is the parejo, sometimes referred to as simply "coronas", which have traditionally been the benchmark against which all other cigar formats are measured. They have 
a cylindrical body, straight sides, one end open, and a round tobacco-leaf "cap" on the other end which must be sliced off, have a V-shaped notch made in it with a special cutter, or punched 
through before smoking.

Figurado

Irregularly shaped cigars are known as figurados and are sometimes considered of higher quality because they are more difficult to make.Historically, especially during the 19th century, figurados were the most popular shapes; however, by the 1930s they had fallen out of fashion and all but disappeared. They have, however, recently received a small resurgence in popularity, and there are currently many brands (manufacturers) that produce figurados alongside the simpler parejos. The Cuban cigar brand Cuaba only has figurados in their range.

Arturo Fuente, a large cigar manufacturer based in the Dominican Republic, has also manufactured figurados in exotic shapes ranging from chili peppers to baseball bats and American footballs. They are highly collectible and extremely expensive, when publicly 
available. In practice, the terms Torpedo and Pyramid are often used interchangeably, even among very knowledgeable cigar smokers. Min Ron Nee, the Hong Kong-based cigar expert whose work An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars is considered to be the definitive work on cigars and cigar terms, defines Torpedo as "cigar slang". Nee thinks the majority is right (because slang is defined by majority usage) and torpedoes are pyramids by another name.

LITTLE CIGARS

Little cigars (sometimes called small cigars or miniatures in the UK) differ greatly from regular cigars. They weigh less than cigars and cigarillos, but, more importantly, they resemble cigarettes in size, shape, packaging, and filters. Sales of little cigars quadrupled in the U.S. from 1971 to 1973 in response to the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, which banned the broadcast of cigarette advertisements and required stronger health warnings on cigarette packs. Cigars were exempt from the ban, and perhaps more importantly, were taxed at a far lower rate. Little cigars are sometimes called "cigarettes in disguise", and unsuccessful attempts have been made to reclassify them as cigarettes. In the United States, sales of little cigars reached an all-time high in 2006, fueled in great part by their taxation loophole. 

Smoking

A double guillotine-style cutter, used for cutting the tip of a cigar, next to two hand-rolled H. Upmann Coronas Major cigars, one inside its storage tube and one outside. The "Made in Cuba" label (see "Cuban cigars" section) is visible on the lower tube.
To smoke a cigar, a smoker cuts the closed end or 'cap', lights theother end, then puts the unlit end into the mouth and draws smoke into the mouth. Some smokers inhale the smoke into the 
lungs, particularly with little cigars, but this is uncommon otherwise. A smoker may swirl the smoke around in the mouth before exhaling it, and may exhale part of the smoke through the
nose in order to smell the cigar better as well as to taste it.