How to Properly Re-light a Cigar

Can you relight your cigar if it goes out? Maybe you’ve had enough of one cigar and want to move onto another? In order to help you preserve your cigars and continue enjoying your smoking experience we have outlined steps on how to properly relight a cigar.

It is ok to relight a cigar immediately, when enjoying a cigar it is actually quite common for a cigar to go out and needs a re-light, however it is not ok to re-light a cigar many hours or even days later. If you leave a half smoked cigar in an ashtray and come back to smoke it later you will notice it doesn't taste the same, it doesn't feel the same and the smell can be quite rancid. A cigar left out for a long period can go off and not be as desirable as it was to begin with. However if it hasn’t been too long you can re-light and continue to enjoy.

How to re-light a cigar

Re-lighting a cigar can be a simple task if you know how to do it properly. If you have ash leftover on your cigar you may think you need to light the ash. This process would completely end your smoking experience with this cigar. You need to remove the ash as it is burnt tobacco and carbon monoxide, this means you are recycling burnt material. The burnt taste will then move onto your pallet and will take a while to leave which just ruins your cigar.

To remove the ash from your cigar gently tap it so it falls off into your ashtray. Once you have removed the ash it’s almost like starting with a clean slate, toast the cigar just like you would during the initial light. By following these steps, your re-lit cigar will be as nice as it was when you originally took your first few puffs.

As long as you follow the steps above, re-lighting a cigar will be fine. However there are some people who say you can smoke a cigar, leave it a day and then re-cut and light again. To be able to do this you must use a guillotine cutter and cut above the ash line where there is no burn. That will be a much better experience than smoking the old rancid cigar. No matter what you do, re-lighting a day old cigar will not bring it back to its original tastes and aromas as some of the oils in the tobacco have already been burnt away.

So in short yes you can cut it and save it for another day but it will not have the same experience as smoking one fresh from the humidor.

Written by Oliver Partington