Unco B's Stogie Diary

Where the hell is the coffee? If you’ve ever read a cigar review and wondered why you can’t taste black pepper, cedar, leather, or espresso, your palate probably isn’t broken. You’re just learning the language.

Ring gauge isn’t just size. It’s geometry. And geometry changes how a cigar expresses its blend. Sometimes a cigar doesn’t need a second chance. Sometimes it just needs a different shape.

Taste doesn’t begin with the cigar. It begins with your mouth. Food, drink, spice, sugar, coffee, alcohol, and dehydration can all change the environment a cigar enters. Water helps reset the palate, while a good drink becomes part of the pleasure. The key is knowing whether you’re tasting the cigar…

Most of us are used to seeing countries listed in a blend: Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador. But country only gets us part of the way there. A Nicaraguan leaf from Estelí is not the same as one from Jalapa. That’s where terroir comes in.

Cigars are constantly aging right up to the moment they’re lit. Whether we call it resting, laying down, acclimating, or aging, time is still doing what time does.

Though there are thousands of decisions that go into producing a cigar, one area that rarely gets attention is the leaves themselves and what they actually contribute.