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| Cigaradvocate.org >> Cigar 411 >> Glossary / Dictionary | August 28, 2008 |
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Band - The ring of paper printed with the name of the cigar brand, usually wrapped near the close to the head of a cigar. It may include the country of origin and whether or not it is hand rolled.
Barrel - The main body or shank of the Cigar
Binder - The portion of tobacco leaf used to hold together the blend of filler leaves called the bunch. The binder is one of the three main components in a Cigar
Blend - The mixture of different types of tobacco in a cigar, including up to about five types of filler leaves, a binder leaf and an outer wrapper leaf.
Bloom - Also referred to as the plume, it is a white film caused by the oils in the tobacco rising to the surface of a cigars wrapper, it will eventually look like small crystals in the cigar and it is not only harmless, but often desirable.
Blue Mold - Peronospara tabacina is a fast moving, airborne fungus that can ruin a tobacco field in just a few days. It flourishes in cool weather with light rain and can quickly spread and ruin cigars.
Booking - A rolling method by which the cigarmaker lays the filler leaves atop one another, then rolls them up like a scroll. Book style, or booking, is common in Honduras.
Bouquet - The smell, or nose,"of an unlit cigar.
Box Press - The square appearance that some cigars take on after being tightly packed in a box. Box press cigars don't taste differently than non pressed, it is purley aesthetic.
Bulk - A large pile of tobacco leaves in which the fermentation process occurs.
Bunch - The intermediate cluster of filler tobacco in a cigar
Bundle - A packaging method, designed with economy in mind, that uses cellophane as a box. It usually contains 25 or 50 cigars, traditionally without bands. Bundles, oftentimes seconds of premium brands, are usually less expensive than boxed cigars.
Burros - The piles, or bulks, in which cigar tobacco is fermented. They can be as tall and are carefully monitored. If the heat level inside the burro gets too high (over 110°F), it is taken apart to slow the fermentation.
Cabinet Selection - Cigars packed in a wooden box rather than the standard cardboard or paper-covered cigar boxes. These cigars often use better quality tobacco and can be more expensive than the brands regular line of cigars.
Cameroon - A country whose tobacco is primarily used for wrappers on premium cigars. It offer a unique full flavored, smooth smoking experience.
Candela - A bright green shade of wrapper, achieved by a heat-curing process that fixes the chlorophyll content of the wrapper while it's still in the barn. Also referred to as double claro.
Cap - The small flag of wrapper leaf that the roller lays down and seals to the head of the cigar with a vegetable based gum
Capa - The cigar's wrapper.
Carotene - A naturally occurring compound found in aged cigars.
Cedar - The most common kind of wood that is used to make most cigar boxes and humidors.
Cepo - An implement to measure the diameter of a cigar
Chaveta - The knife used in a cigar factory for cutting the wrapper leaf.
Churchill - A large cigar, traditionally 7 inches by 47 ring gauge but often larger today. Shape named after Sir Winston Churchill, who was famous for almost never being seen without a cigar. This shape being his favorite, it was suitably named after him.
Cigar Mold - 1. The wooden mold used in cigar making. It has two parts that are placed in a press to press the bunch of filler tobaccos into the shape of the mold. 2. A fungus that forms on and in a cigar due to high levels of moisture.
Cigarillos - Thin, short cigars, popular in Europe, are generally machine-made, and many brands use homogenized wrappers or binders. Cuban Cigarillos are typically made from the first primings due to the small size of the leaf.
Claro - A pale-green to light-brown wrapper, usually shade-grown.
Colorado - A medium-brown to brownish-red shade of wrapper tobacco
Corona - The most familiar and traditional size and shape. It is said that the corona size offers the most well rounded flavor of a particular cigar brand.
Credo - Originally a specific manufacturer of PG (Propylene Glycol) based humidification devices for humidors. The term Credo is now often used for any humidification devices which chemically regulated the humidors environment
Cuban Seed - Usually refers to tobacco plants grown in non-Cuban countries with seeds from Cuba.
Culebra - Spanish for "snake." Culebras are cigars made of three panetelas braided and banded together as one. These cigars generally have a smaller ring gague and are meant to be smoked individually.
Cutter - A tool used to cut away a portion of the cigar cap to allow for an easy draw
Diademas - A big cigar with a closed and tapered head. Generally about 8 inches long; the foot may be open, or closed like a perfecto.
Double Corona - A big cigar, usually found at 7 1/2 to 8 inches by a 49 to 52 ring gauge.
Draw - The amount of air that gets pulled through a lit cigar.
English Market Selection - Abbreviated EMS, a term used to designate a natural color wrapper. In the United Kingdom, an EMS sticker found on boxes of Cuban cigars refers to inventory that has been vetted by Hunters & Frankau, cigar distributors.
Entubar - A rolling method that originated in Cuba. The roller folds each individual filler leaf back on itself, then bunches the leaves together. It creates superior air flow through the cigar.
Entubar - A rolling method that originated in Cuba. The roller folds each individual filler leaf back on itself, then bunches the leaves together. It creates superior air flow through the cigar.
Fermentation - Tobacco leaves in large bulks (or piles). Temperatures may reach 140°F before the bulk is broken down and restacked until fermentation stops naturally. This process releases ammonia from the tobacco.
Figurados - A Spanish term that refers to cigars with shapes sizes, such as belicosos, torpedos, pyramids, perfectos and culebras.
Filler - The tobacco leaves used in the body of the cigar. A cigar usually contains between two and five different types of filler tobacco to make any particular blend.
Finish - A term referring to tasting. Used to describe the taste that lingers on your palate after a puff. Mild cigars don't have a long or strong finish, either in terms of length or complexity. Stronger, more full-bodied cigars have distinctive flavors that linger for a while after the smoke leaves the palate.
Flag Leaves - An extension of the wrapper leaf shaped to finish the head of a cigar; used instead of a cap. Flags are sometimes tied off in a pigtail or a curly head. Very common on Cuban gran panetelas.
Foot - The end of the cigar you light. Most often it is pre-cut, except in the case of perfectos where it is tapered. The foot usually has a strong aroma before lighting.
Gran Corona - A big cigar size, traditionally 9 1/4 inches by a 47 ring gauge.
Gum - A vegetable adhesive used to secure the head of the wrapper leaf around the finished bunch.
Habano - A name referring to Cuban cigars.
Habanos S.A - The worldwide distribution company for Cuban cigars, formerly called Cubatabaco.
Half Wheel - A bundle of 50 cigars. Cigar rollers usually use ribbon to tie the cigars into half-wheels.
Humidor - Cigar storage container with help to maintaina regulated temperature & humidity. Typically made from Spanish Cedar, but not always.
Hygrometer - A device that indicates the humidity, or percentage of moisture in the air; used to monitor humidor conditions
Lance - A cutter used to pierce a small hole in the closed end (Head) of a cigar. Also called a piercer.
Lance - A cutter used to pierce a small hole in the closed end (Head) of a cigar. Also called a piercer.
LCDH - La Casa del Habanos, the only authorized dealers for Habanos SA cigars
Lector - Traditionally, the person who reads to the cigar rollers while they work in a Cuban cigar factory.
Ligero - One of the three basic types of filler tobacco. Generally one of the more fuller flavored and bodied leaves of the tobacco plant, it is one of the last primings to be picked off of the plant.
Long Filler - Filler tobacco that runs the length of the body of the cigar, rather than chopped pieces found in machine-made, or mixed filler cigars.
Lonsdale - A long cigar, generally 6 to 6 3/4 inches by a 42 to 44 ring gauge, but there are many variations. Named after Hugh Lowther because it was his favorite size, he was the 5th Earl of Lonsdale.
Machine Made - Cigars made entirely by machine. Usually the filler tobacco in machine made cigars is short filler, or mixed filler. These cigars are less expensive than hand made cigars.
Maduro - The word means ripe in Spanish. Became known as a dark wrapper color during the boom of the 90’s, however maduro DOES NOT describe color, it describes flavor. However, maduro wrappers do tend to naturally be darker than others.
Oil - Tobaccos secrete oils that can show on a cigars wrapper. If a cigar is kept at a constant Relative Humidity and temperature, the oils will actually crystalize over time forming bloom or plume on a cigar. It is a sign of properly, well aged quality tobacco.
Olor - A variety of Dominican cigar tobacco.
Oscuro - The darkest shade of wrapper colors. Often Brazilian or Mexican in origin.
Panetela - A long, thin cigar shape traditionally made in Cuba.
Perfecto - A distinctive cigar shape that is tapered at both ends with a rounded head, usually with a bulge in the middle.
Perfecto - A cigar shape that features a closed foot, a pointed head and a bulge in the middle.
Piercer - A cutter used to pierce a small hole in the closed end of a cigar. Also called a lance.
Piloto Cubano - A popular variety of Cuban-seed tobacco grown in the Dominican Republic.
Planchas - Boards on which tobacco leaves are spread before fermentation.
Plug - A blockage that sometimes occurs in the tobacco that can prevent a cigar from drawing properly.
Plume - Also referred to as the Bloom, it is a white film caused by the oils in the tobacco rising to the surface of a cigars wrapper, it will eventually look like small crystals in the cigar and it is not only harmless, but often desirable.
Pre-embargo Cuban Cigar - A Cuban cigar made before President Kennedy enacted the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba in 1962.
Primings - The different rows of leaves on a tobacco plant. The number of primings can vary, but six is average. The first priming is closest to the ground, the sixth is near the top. The higher the, priming the fuller flavored the tobacco is.
Puro - A Spanish term used to distinguish a cigar from a cigarette. MoToday it refers to a cigar blended with tobaccos from a single country. (A cigar using 100 percent tobacco from a single country is called a puro.)
Pyramid - A sharply tapered cigar with a wide, open foot and a closed head. Some manufacturers spell it differently than others.
Ring Gague - A measurement for the diameter of a cigar, based on 64ths of an inch. A 40 ring gauge cigar is 40/64ths of an inch thick.
Robusto - A shorter cigar traditionally 5 to 5 1/2 inches by a 50 ring gauge. It varies from manufactuer to manufacturer.
Rosado - A Spanish term that means "rose-colored." It is used to describe the reddish tint of wrapper tobacco.
Shade-Grown - Wrapper leaves that have been grown under a cheesecloth canopies, called a tapado. The filtered sunlight creates a thinner, more elastic, aesthetically pleasing leaf.
Short Filler - Used mainly in machine-made cigars, it consists of chopped scraps of leaf. Short filler burns quicker and hotter than long filler.
Shoulder - The area of a cigar where the cap meets and ends on the body. If you cut into the shoulder the cigar will most likely begin to unravel.
Spill - A strip of cedar used to light a cigar.
Sun Grown - Tobacco grown in direct sunlight, which creates a thicker leaf with thicker veins.
Tapado - A cheesecloth tent under which shade-grown wrapper leaf is cultivated.
Tooth - The grain pattern characteristic of less smooth wrapper leaf, such as leaf from Cameroon. It can have a sandpaper feel or appearance.
Torcedores - Cigar rollers
Totalmente a Mano - Made totally by hand; a description found on cigar boxes. Much better than "Hecho a Mano" (made by hand, which can mean it is filled with machine-bunched filler), or "Envuelto a Mano" (packed by hand).
Tubos - Cigars packed in individual wood, metal or glass tubes. Tubes are great for aging cigars that will have 20 plus years on them.
Tunneling - A type of uneven burn that can occur in a cigar. It is where one sire of the cigar burns faster than the other.
Vein - A structural part of a leaf; prominent veins can be a defect in wrappers.
Veulta Abejo - The valley in Cuba that is said to produce the best cigar tobacco in the world.
Vintage - When the term vintage is used for a cigar, it usually refers to the year the tobacco was harvested, not the year the cigar was made.
Vitola - A factory term for a cigar shape. Robusto and churchill are two examples of vitolas.
Volado - A type of filler tobacco chosen for its burning qualities.
Wedge Cut - A V-shaped cut made in the closed end of a cigar
Wrapper - The high-quality tobacco leaf wrapped around the finished bunch and binder. It is elastic and should be unblemished.
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