While scrolling through my Instagram feed the other day, I came across a reel where the guy argued that you should give new smokers cheap cigars. He argued that a newbie would either hate an expensive cigar or not understand what they were getting. He compared it to giving a toddler a $300 Wagyu steak. He also argued that the expense would make them worry about wasting money, smoking incorrectly, or missing the tasting notes. They wouldn’t be able to relax. He advised staying in the $8 to $12 range and buying three $10 cigars instead of one $30 cigar.
I think both arguments are bullshit.
At first blush, I can see the reasoning. Someone new to cigars may not appreciate the nuance of a good stick, and the price might make them uncomfortable. But as with so many social media reels, the explanation stops at the surface. He made assumptions, then tried to turn them into law.
If I sound a little irritated, I am, but it’s not because I’m irritated with the reel’s author. To be honest, I like a lot of his content. But this reel epitomizes a fundamental issue I have with a lot of social media instruction.
What bothers me is how little of the subject gets considered before the advice becomes a general rule. A few assumptions shape the discussion, and the answers make sense within them. But then they present those answers as something we should apply to every circumstance. We’ve been given a very narrow treatment of a subject and told to treat it as if it covers everything.
That doesn’t sit well with me.
In this particular reel, the discussion revolves around price and what a beginner supposedly can’t appreciate. Accept those premises, and a cheaper cigar becomes the obvious answer. But choosing a cigar for someone involves considerably more than those two things.
Any experienced tobacconist will attest to that.
For instance, even though I’ve been smoking cigars for decades, it wasn’t until about 15 years ago that I started paying closer attention to what I was smoking. I knew what I liked, and luckily for me, some of those were pretty good sticks: the Cuban Montecristo No. 2, the Padrón 1964 Anniversary, AJ sticks, and the Don Carlos.
I didn’t apply the same level of discernment I do nowadays, but I had a good friend, Greg, God rest his soul, who worked for a cigar and tobacco distributor. He either gave me cigars or recommended sticks to buy. I didn’t get into tasting notes and all the subtle flavor nuances a cigar can offer, but I learned to enjoy cigars largely through conversations with him.
And then there was Nat Sherman in New York City. The first time I went there, I told the tobacconist I’d been smoking for quite a while, but I only knew what I knew. He asked about the sticks I liked, the kinds of foods and beverages I enjoyed, and my budget.
I honestly told him I didn’t know my budget, but if a cigar was good, I wouldn’t mind paying $20–$30.
He returned with a tray of a dozen cigars, arranged by price from left to right, with an Opus X being the most expensive of the bunch.
I bought them all.
Those recommendations came out of a conversation. I gave him examples of cigars I enjoyed, and his questions about food and beverages gave him more information about my taste. My budget told him what I was comfortable spending. By the time he brought out that tray, he had something to work with beyond how long I’d been smoking.
A first-time smoker won’t have a list of favorite cigars to offer, but you can still have much of that conversation. They already have preferences in food and drink. They may enjoy delicate flavors, rich flavors, spicy food, strong coffee, or any number of things that give you somewhere to start. They may also be perfectly comfortable spending $30 to try something new. You learn those things by asking.
The problem with the label “new smoker” is that it doesn’t answer those questions. It also doesn’t tell us what someone expects from the experience. And assuming price creates pressure to find tasting notes or have some transformative experience assigns expectations before we’ve asked what they want from a cigar.
A newbie’s assessment tends to be pretty binary: they either like it or they don’t. They aren’t sitting there worrying about whether they’ve found the cedar or experienced a sufficiently profound transition into the second third. They’re finding out whether they enjoy smoking a cigar. They can make that assessment at any price.
Someone new to the hobby may decide that $30 is more than they want to spend on that experiment. Fair enough. That’s a budget decision. But being willing to spend it doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly expect tasting notes and a transformative experience. That expectation belongs to a much more involved way of assessing cigars.
Assuming a beginner feels it projects an experienced smoker’s concerns onto someone who is still deciding what they like.
So what’s the point of all this?
My objection goes beyond which cigar someone recommends. It’s the habit of taking a narrow set of assumptions, building an answer around them, and passing that answer along as something everyone should follow. Repeat it often enough, and it becomes another rule of cigar culture that people follow without considering the person in front of them.
Specifically, it centers around the notion that you should only give a newbie a cheap cigar.
When we introduce someone to cigars, our experience should help us ask better questions. What do they enjoy? What are they curious about? What are they comfortable spending? Their answers give us something useful to work with. A recommendation can then come from what we’ve learned about that person, with room for them to discover something neither of us anticipated.
That’s how we help someone develop their own judgment. Give them a starting point, let them have the experience, and listen to what they have to say afterward. They may love the cigar. They may hate it. Either response gives you something to discuss and explore together.
I want someone’s introduction to cigars to leave them curious about what else they might enjoy. We can spark that curiosity more by having a conversation than by deciding in advance what they’re capable of appreciating.
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