Have you ever been enjoying one of your favourite cigars and wondered what you are actually smoking? How is a cigar constructed to give you an amazing experience every time?
Multiple tobacco leaves are rolled together into a stick but each leaf has specific jobs to give you the best experience.
There are three different types of tobacco used in the construction of a cigar: the filler, the binder and the wrapper, all of which don't have to come from the same farm, however they can be taken from various parts of the tobacco plant.
The wrapper comes from the top of the plant while the binder can be taken from either the middle or bottom, the filler can come from anywhere as it doesn’t need to look aesthetically pleasing.
All premium cigars are going to be long-filled and hand-rolled. This means the tobacco leaves will not be chopped up and placed inside a wrapper. The entire cigar will be all-natural in a long leaf form
Filler tobacco are the leaves that go inside of the cigar. It’s usually made from a blend of different tobaccos that have been carefully selected by a master blender to provide the flavour and body of the cigar. You could say the rollers have a recipe to follow. The blend tends to be a mixture of three types of tobacco leaves: Ligero (the strongest), Viso and finally Seco (the mildest). The blender will choose a mix of these leaves based on flavour, how/if they will blend together and their combustion which controls the burn.
Next up is the binder leaf, the binder only has one job and that is to hold the filler tobacco together. The binder leaf is not very nice to look at but it doesn’t need to be as it is hidden under the wrapper. Binder Leaves are low quality compared to wrapper leaves, surprisingly most are picked with the intention of being used as a wrapper but are not quite good enough.
Finally its the wrapper leaf which is specifically picked out of the plant for the purpose of being a wrapper. The wrapper has two major functions, the first and most important is it sells the cigar, its what you see when you open a box and any imperfections can put you off smoking that particular cigar. Most imperfections won't affect the cigar burn or flavour but it does affect the aesthetics. The second purpose is that it’s the leaf thats touching your mouth and comes in contact with your palate. The cigar could be an amazing cigar but with a terrible wrapper it more than likely will put you off trying it.
All tobaccos in a cigar are important however in my opinion the wrapper leaf is the most important, if it doesn’t look good and is not perfectly placed on the cigar i’m not going to try it, a cigar needs to be beautiful to give it a chance.
Written by Oliver Partington
Part of the Dominique London Group
