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What Are You Tasting in a Cigar? | Box Press Shorts Ep. 75
Episode 755th December 2022 • Box Press • Boveda Inc.
00:00:00 00:08:12

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Cigar smokers wanna know what the best cigar flavors are. Even if you smoke the #1 cigar, you might never experience its full flavor if you smoke a cigar too fast, judge a cigar when you first light it or try to set the record for the biggest ash.

You might be surprised to hear the way you smoke cigars may impact their flavors. Correct these 3 mistakes cigar smokers make and your next cigar might taste a whole lot better.

Pro Cigar Tip: a well-humidified cigar always tastes better. Store cigars with Boveda in a humidor to get the best flavor out of every cigar.

Guest: Altadis Cigars’ National Education Manager, Travis Pappenheim

Boveda Box Hosts: Rob Gagner and Nate Beck

Website: https://www.bovedainc.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bovedausa/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bovedainc

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bovedainc/

00:00 Cold open

02:19 Are you puffing on a cigar too fast?

02:40 Does tobacco really have flavors?

03:51 How long should you hold cigar smoke in your mouth?

03:57 What it means if the ember of a cigar is this color

04:07 Why a big cigar ash is bad (Our apologies to Sir Mixalot!)

04:25 How to correctly draw on a cigar

06:09 Are you smoking a bad cigar? (How long until a cigar's flavor kicks in.)

07:24 Where’s the most flavor in a cigar—what a lit cigar is trying to tell you.

Boveda are 2-way humidity packs you put in a humidor to preserve cigars. If you store cigars in a wood humidor, have you seasoned your humidor lately? The easy way to season a wood humidor is using the Boveda Humidor Starter Kits.

Check out the easy-to-use kits here: https://store.bovedainc.com/collections/boveda-for-tobacco/starter-kit

How many Boveda do I need for a humidor? Find out here: https://boveda-humidor-calculator.bovedainc.com/

Transcripts

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Welcome to another episode of Box Press. I'm your host, Rob Gagner. I'm

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joined by co-host, Nate Beck.

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And we have a special guest, Travis Pappenheim

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from Altadis Cigars. Travis, thank

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you for joining us. Thank you for being here. I'm gonna have

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a great time learning a little bit more about tasting sewers. Exactly.

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We did a video about tasting cigars a few years ago. And it

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did really well for us. There was a lot of Education you pulled in

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there and now we want to just pull it a little bit deeper

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into the education profile because this is

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something Nate and I always go back and forth with Nate can

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taste cigars really? Well. I can't I need

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help. So now we're gonna do some little stuff

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like we're gonna test some stuff and see

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if we can get better at this right. I think yeah call it a

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sensory experience a little bit. Yeah, and I would

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say like and we were talking last night like

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If you just enjoy the cigar and it's good and it's

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balanced like I look for balance. I look for complexity sometimes

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like if I want some different flavors or sometimes I

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just want

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Consistent good flavor, and then that's it.

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Like that's as far as I go and that's Travis that

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was interesting last night to hear you say that that's what the blenders are doing.

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Yeah, a lot of blenders in the industry. They we don't

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get flavor notes. We don't. They don't designing a cigar

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based off of what flavor notes are we trying to

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achieve? You can't impart flavors. It's really the

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oils as a smoke draws over those oils as

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the oils expand, those oils are gonna leave a little residue as

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it goes through and hits your palate and that's what we're picking up. Let's talk

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about that because most people don't know that. So when

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you actually burn a cigar,

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you're actually smoking literally the

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oils and sugars behind the burn line. You're heating

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them up.

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And that's being drawn into your

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palate and that's what creates the flavor. Right.

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The tobacco is really just

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the fuel at the embered end. The smoke

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that's being drawn over is drawing over those oils,

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picking up a little bit of those flavors as it goes

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through, or the oil residue with those oils consist

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of--

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the elements... Right. ...that were involved with making those oils. It's then

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depositing them on your on your palate, as

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you're holding that smoke in your mouth. That's why, um, the first video we did

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I said, let's--we really want to hold that in

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your palate for about five seconds, putting pressure, blowing

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your cheeks out. It helps embed a little

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bit of those oil residues that are coming through and they're embedding

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in your palate. And really, that's all it is.

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Tobacco is the fuel but you want the oils that comes with it.

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Right. The sugars help you get that color and depth you want. That's so

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important. that holding. Because I see some people smoke cigars. They

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just inhale and then blow it right back out real quick.

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I'm like, how can you taste anything? I'm not judging.

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I'm just, for me, it's really hard to taste

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at a high level. So I really have

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to think about it. Or I really have to hold it. Like, and just those

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simple tips of just like, hold that for extra couple

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seconds, and then slowly blow it

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out. Yeah, you want to get--remember cigars, we aren't

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in a hurry with cigars. No. It's taking us over

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three years--at a minimum--from seed to finished product

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to create a cigar. Right.

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Why are we rushing to get through it? And that's the one of the biggest

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mistakes I see with

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people who are getting into cigars, who've not

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been guided by somebody, like we did back in the '70s

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or '80s, or even before that, you know, back in the old days.

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Grandpa, dad helped Junior, you know

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that you helped each other.

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Slow down. Do this. Look, and there's proper things you can do to

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give you that better experience, right? Because cigars are just a luxury

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item. A hobby. Yep. That we

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get to enjoy with our friends. Yep. Why not take that time to enjoy that?

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Well, one thing I see a lot of people doing is inhaling too

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fast. Or you know, drawing that, not really inhaling, but

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drawing that smoke in your mouth.

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Way too fast.

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Remember, the idea is to keep that ember as cool

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as possible.

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And only keeping a quarter of an inch

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of ash. Maybe a half of an inch at the most. Yeah. Don't want

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that oxygen getting through that ash, because now you're picking

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up bad impurities--whatever is in the ash that's left over. Exactly.

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Combusting that and then creating that slight off-flavor

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but still an off-flavor. Absolutely. So ash those

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off. No, but if you draw it--when I tell

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a lot of people--if you want to think of it this way--do a slow count

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of three when you draw the smoke into your mouth. That's such a good tip because that's where

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it changed for me and how I tasted a cigar.

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It was two things.

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Slow, long draw.

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And not the puff, puff, puff, which we'll do in a totally different video

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of how to smoke a cigar. We're doing that today with Travis. But the second

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one was, in between, letting the

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cigar rest and cool down. Because some of the times

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the best flavors I get out of a cigar when

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I forgot about it. I'm like, oh, yeah, I got to pick that up and smoke it

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and I'm like, holy cow that tastes amazing! Because it's

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cooler and like even to just touch down here by the

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end--if it's just warm, you're

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perfect. But if it's blazing hot

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and you can't touch that, you're, you're ripping it too hard.

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And you're burning off... Too big of a hurry at that point, right? Well, I mean I

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can hold this for a while. This is not too hot. Yeah. And it's just

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perfect. You're burning off all the oils and sugars... Absolutely. ...before they even get to

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your mouth. Right? I mean, that's what I think is happening in

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theory is like it's just too hot and it's like POOF, an incinerator. You're

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singeing them. You're singeing that tobacco

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so hot that oils the oils are really... That's a good way to say it. ...I like

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to say, it's like when we cook a steak. There's a

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time and an opportunity that

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you want to sear your steak at a really high temperature. Say 800-900

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degrees. But if I'm gonna cook a steak to

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a medium-rare or a medium, and I don't have an oven.

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I'm not gonna cook a steak at 800 degrees, because it's gonna

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cook way too fast in the outside. Right. Burn the peanuts out

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of the oils or the fats that are there. Yep. And those

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fats are not gonna be very good, because they're gonna be so singed. You don't

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want to do that to the oils on the tobacco. You want to let them

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slowly heat up, draw that smoke over it, and not sing it.

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Yep. And burn it. Yep. Yeah, like right now at this point,

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we're not very far into our cigars. This is to me, sometimes the

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worst part of the cigar. It's usually sometimes

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the most bitter part. There's not a lot of complexity of

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the flavor.

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Just it's like this period that you have to get through but

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you even say, Travis, that at a quarter of

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an inch, that's when you really should start tasting things. Like that's

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when the oils are starting to heat up and start to go, "Oh, we're

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doing something here. You want to release us!"

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Well, you don't go to a concert and sit there

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and listen to the percussionist and the bass,

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the bass guitarist.

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That's not them. That's not the band.

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You gotta wait for the lead guitar. You gotta wait for the other accessories that

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go with the full band. Well, when we're smoking a

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cigar and you just light it up, remember the tobacco leaf on the

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outside, the wrapper and consequently, the binder, are probably

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the two thinnest leaves in the whole cigar. Those ones

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that are gonna ignite right away. The thicker tobaccos do

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take more time to heat those oils up. Let them naturally

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just start to warm up. So, if you get about that, an eighth of an inch,

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a quarter of an inch in, a 16th of an inch, it

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depends on each cigar. You know, the thicker tobaccos, you're

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gonna have to get into them a little bit more. But like you mentioned, you can

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you can feel just right down here. Once you feel that these start

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to get a little warm, you know that the oils are going to expand. Yeah,

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mine's just starting to get warm to the

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touch. Like earlier, it was like cold. For me

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It's yes, if you look at your cigar, like right in here,

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you'll notice that it starts to bellow just a little

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bit. I was just noticing that. When you just fire your cigar up, that

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hasn't had time for the water content. That moisture. Yeah that water

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concentration. It doesn't have a way

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to

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get out because of the capped end. It's burning and you

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only draw on it every 45 seconds to a minute and

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a half, two minutes, depending on your location.

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When I see that bellowing, starting to bellow out,

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that means I know that water is starting to expand, that means the

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oils are gonna start to expand, they kind of go hand in hand. Sure. So

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there are times, I'm just like, okay, they're bellowing, now it's time to,

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let's see what the flavor is. It's a little indicator to you. Like a little bulb,

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just a little

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