Cigar Encyclopedia
Did you ever wonder what the difference between a Churchill and a Double Corona is? What about the specific roles of a lector or a ligador in a cigar manufacturing plant? The Half Smoked Encyclopedia will answer those questions – and many more. Browse our extensive glossary of cigar terms below!
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• Air Curing:
The process of hanging freshly picked tobacco leaves in open air, covered barns to dry in the breeze.
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• Aging:
The period during which newly completed cigars rest in humidity controlled, cedar-lined storage areas, called "aging rooms". This rest time gives the flavors of the tobaccos within the cigars a chance to blend.
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• A. M. S. - American Market Selection:
A designation for the light and mild wrappers, Claro Claro, Candela, and Jade.
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• Aroma:
A cigar's smell when it is burning. Bouquet is the smell of the wrapper and open foot before the cigar has been lit.
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• Biddies:
A small East Indian cigar.
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• Binder:
The tobacco leaf wrapped around the filler, holding the core of the cigar together. The outer, or wrapper leaf covers the binder.
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• Bales:
After tobacco leaves have finished fermenting, they are packed ina bale made from the tough sheath of the palm tree and encased in burlap, which provides a home for the leaves while they age, and also serves to transport them safely.
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• Band:
The paper ring around each cigar that decoratively identifies the brand.
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• Barrel:
The shaft of the cigar. Also called the body or canon (pronounced (canyon).
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• Blend:
The combination of tobacco leaves chosen for each cigar. A cigar's character depends on the blend, which may have tobaccos from different countries, crops and years. The blender strives for a mixture that results in a consistent good taste.
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• Body:
The relative strength or body of your cigar means whether it is mild, medium or full bodied.
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• Booking:
Folding the filler leaves in a cigar's bunch the way the pages of a book are folded. This is an inferior method, causing a thicker concentration of leaves on one side, which results in an uneven taste and burning.
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• Box Pressed:
Certain cigars are pressed so tightly into a box that they assume a slightly square shape rather than round.
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• Buckeye:
A small, generally family owned, cigar making company.
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• Bulks:
The tall stacks of tobacco piled high so that fermentation will take place as the temperature in them rises. Also called burros, a Cuban term.
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• Bunch:
During cigar making, the leaves that make up the filler and binder before the finishing wrapper leaf is added.
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• Bunchbreaker or Buncher:
The person in a cigar factory who takes the filler and wraps a binder leaf around it, creating a bunch. Also called a buncher or bunchmaker.
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• Bundled Cigars:
Sometimes cigars are sold in bundles of 10 or 25, rather than in a box. Bundling and wrapping in plastic saves money, so less expensive smokes, or "seconds" are bundled. Bundled cigars can be a good deal.
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• Cap:
The piece of tobacco laid over the head of a cigar. It is clipped before smoking.
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• Casing:
A process of spraying tobacco after it has been dried. This moisture makes the leaves pliable so that they can be rolled into cigars.
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• Clear Havana:
An all-Havana cigar.
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• Cedar:
Cedar can impart a delicate and pleasing woody flavor to tobacco. Cedar is used to make cigar boxes, and to line the walls of humidors and cigar aging rooms.
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• Chavetta (or Tuck):
A specialized crescent-shaped knife that is one of the cigar rollers only tools. It's used to cut the leaf, pack the filler into the cigar, and shape the stogie.
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• Cheroot:
A small cigar. A century ago, cheroots were often smoked using a decorative holder.
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• Cigar Bar:
A place with comfortable seating and/or tables where you can buy individual cigars and accompany them with drinks.
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• Cigarillo:
A "small cigar" generally not much bigger than a cigarette. It's made from cigar leaf tobacco, but due to its small size, it generally contains short filler to promote proper even burning.
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• Climate:
A critical part of growing good cigar leaf. Even slight differences in temperature and rainfall will make the same type of tobacco plant have a different flavor.
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• Criollos:
Harsh cigars smoked by native Cubans.
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• Culebra:
A three-in-one twisted cigar. Actually, three cork-screw shaped cigars bound together. An invention of cigar factories of the 19th century to keep workers from stealing their product. Each employee was allowed three cigars a day - of this obvious shape only.
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• Curly Head:
The little ponytail-like twisted end of tobacco on the head of some premium brand cigars. Also called fancy tail.
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• Cutter:
A device used to remove or puncture the cap of tobacco used to seal the tip of a cigar. There are numerous types of cutters and several types of cuts.
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• Debudding:
The process of nipping off the flower buds that sprout from the top of a tobacco plant, forcing the plant to expend all its energy to grow bigger, better leaves.
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• Demitasse:
A small size cigar usually 4 inches long with a 30 ring gauge.
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• Dry Cigars:
Called dry or "Dutch-type" by Americans, these small cigars need no humidification. Made by the Dutch and Swiss, they use short filler, usually of tobacco from Sumatra and Indonesia.
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• E.M.S.:
English Market Selection. In days past, the British and Americans preferred the lighter wrappers, almost green in color. They became referred to as English Market Selection.
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• Fermentation:
The process during which cigar tobacco, through self-generated heat, gives off nicotine and other compounds, turns color and gains much of its flavor. Also called curing, sweating and mulling.
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• Figuardo:
A cigar that is not a straight-sided cylinder such as a Pyramid or Torpedo.
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• Filler:
The blend of tobacco in the center of the cigar surrounded by the binder and then the wrapper. The heart of a cigar's flavor.
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• Finished Head:
The head of a cigar that has been formed by the wrapper leaf, not a separate cap.
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• Flathead:
A cigar whose head is not rounded, but flat.
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• Foot:
The end of the cigar that is lit. Also called the tuck end.
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• Gallera:
The large factory room where the cigars are rolled.
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• Guillotine:
A cigar cutter that works like its namesake. The hand-held instrument has a hole where the head of the cigar is placed, and a blade to slice off a circular opening. A "guillotine cut" describes the cut.
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• Hand:
A group of about 20 tobacco leaves that are tied together at the bottom of their stems. In processing and sorting, the hand is the division generally used.
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• Handmade:
A cigar that has been bunched and rolled completely by hand.
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• Handrolled:
A cigar whose wrapper has been added by hand, but whose bunch was made by a machine. Sometimes designated erroneously as handmade.
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• Head:
The end of the cigar that is clipped and put into the mouth.
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• Heat Curing:
Accelerating the natural drying process of tobacco using heat. Without sufficient time for flavors to concentrate, this process results in a leaf with less flavor and richness than air-cured leaves.
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• Homogenized Tobacco Leaf:
(HTL) A tobacco product that is used for binder and sometimes wrapper in some "dry" European cigars and American mass-market cigars. It is made from tobacco scraps combined with substances like cellulose and pressed to form sheets.
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• Humidor:
An airtight box, usually of wood, with a humidifying element for storing cigars.
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• Hygrometer:
An instrument that measures relative humidity, In regards to cigars, it is used in a humidor to help maintain the proper level of humidity.
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• Long Filler:
The filler in premium cigars, long enough to fill the entire length of the body. Full leaves are used instead of chopped up scraps.
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• Machine-Made Cigar:
A cigar made primarily by a machine. The filler in most machine-made cigars is short filler or tobacco scraps.
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• Maduro:
Portuguese for old or mature. Ripe in Spanish. A wrapper shade from a very dark reddish-brown to almost black achieved through prolonged fermentation.
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• Marble Head:
A round-headed cigar.
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• Marrying:
Different tobaccos in a cigar are said to "marry" when their oils and aromas permeate one another, creating a blend. The aging room in a cigar factory is also called the "marrying room".
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• Mass-Market Cigar:
A reference to all low priced cigars manufactured by machine in large quantities.
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• Naked:
A cigar without a band.
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• Notch Cutter:
A cigar cutter that creates a V-shaped opening in the head.
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• Oscuro:
A black shade of wrapper, darker than maduro.
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• Pinch Test:
An easy way to check the construction of your cigar is to lightly pinch the cigar between your thumb and index finger. It should feel firm, but not too hard.
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• Plug:
An obstruction in the cigar, caused by tightness in the rolling, that makes drawing difficult.
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• Plume:
A white or light grayish-green dusting on a cigar's wrapper, caused by the crystallization of tobacco oils. Not mold, it is harmless and can be brushed off. Also called bloom, it occurs most often in cigars kept in a humidor quite some time.
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• Premium Cigar:
Any high-grade cigar made by hand of 100% tobacco with long leaf filler.
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• Puro:
Spanish for pure, the term refers to a cigar whose filler, bundle and wrapper are made from tobacco grown in the same country. All Cuban cigars are puros.
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• Ring Gauge:
A measurement for the diameter of a cigar divided into 64ths. Thus a 64 ring gauge would mean that a cigar had a one inch diameter. A 32 ring gauge indicates a half inch diameter; a 48, a three quarter inch diameter.
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• Robusto:
A short fat cigar popular for its short time to smoke while still delivering a premium, high-quality smoking experience.
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• Roller:
The person who applies the wrapper leaf to the bunch in cigar making. Master rollers are highly skilled craftsmen.
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• Seconds:
Cigars that are rejected by manufacturers for a variety of reasons are frequently sold as "seconds". They ar often packaged economically, and sold at a significant discount to the company's firsts. The flaws, however, may be so insignificant that the seconds represent an excellent value.
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• Scrap Filler:
Left over tobacco cuttings used as filler for inexpensive cigars.
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• Shade Leaf:
Tobacco grown under a canopy of cheese-cloth or mesh to shield it from the sun. Most often used in reference to Connecticut shade leaf wrapper.
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• Short Filler:
Not the same as scrap filler, short filler is made of premium tobacco long filler leaves cut to a smaller size so they can be used in small cigars or in manufacturing by machines.
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• Smoker:
Broadly defined, a cigar smoking event. This can be an elaborate meal with wines and cigars for each course, or a more informal gathering of like minded cigar afficianados.
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• Stogie or Stogy:
Slang for cigar, often inexpensive. Invented in 1827 and smoked by frontiersmen heading west, the cigar was said to resemble the spoke of a Conestoga wagon wheel. First the cigar was called Conestoga, and then it was shortened to "Stogie"
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• Tooth:
Tiny, gritty bumps that are part of the natural texture of some tobacco wrapper leaves.
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• Torcedor:
The Cuban term for master cigar roller.
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• Tuck:
Also called the foot of the cigar. The end that is lit.
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• Wrapper:
The outer leaf rolled around the binder. Wrapper is the finest quality leaf on any cigar.
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