Blog & Cigar News | Mardo Cigars

Hi, and welcome to another episode of Mondays with Mardo's, I'm Gerard and this week we're going to talk about how to select a premium cigar, but before I get going, I need you to click on that subscribe button, click on the bell to be notified every single week of new episodes on Mondays with Mardo's.

All right. So today I'm going to give you some tips that I use in order to know if I'm buying truly a premium cigar. Up to this point, we usually buy cigars with things that have bands on them, because we know that the brand behind it is truly a factor that makes premium cigars, the packaging, everything that comes together, just shouts out to you, "Hey, it's a premium cigar because it's made by such and such and I know they've been around for so many years." Well, here's tip number one. On a cigar like this that's naked, does not have cellophane, doesn't have a band, it could be a house brand of a certain cigar shop. It could be anything. So how do you know if this is truly a premium cigar? So the first tip I'm going to give to you guys is to know if this is truly rolled by an experienced torcedor. A torcedor is a person that rolls cigars.

So what you want to do, you may not see it on the camera, but you want to twist it to find exactly where the first seam of the wrapper starts. So when you find the beginning, you can find the line that's going diagonal down the cigar. What you want to do is that you found the first one, then over here you're going to find the second. And here you're going to find a third. What I'm referring to is the lines of the seam. So it always comes in threes, excuse my fingers. But you want to make sure that there are three seams in the cigar rolling process. Anything more than that, or less than that, that allows you to know that the roller is inexperienced and it truly is not a premium cigar. All right, so tip number two, I'm going to give it the appearance test, as well as somewhat of the construction, I'm going to give a good little look at the wrapper.

If there's any green spots that indicates that they didn't really age their wrapper very well, kind of hurrying the process, which is not very good because they want to make money more than they want to really put in time in their art. Second, I'll give it a little tiny role if I can. If not, I'll just roll it in my hand to see if it has a good, nice round shape to it. That means that they placed it in the mold neatly. I also take a look at the cap. This has a round tip on it. And as a cap, pretty neatly well-placed yes, it has been, it's got a nice sharp cut to it. And therefore, so far, it looks like it has passed the appearance test.

All right. The last tip I'm going to share with you guys is the weight of the cigar. This does come with experience. Now, why does weight matter in cigars? Well, cigars are measured by grams. When it comes to like a Robusto, it should be anywhere between 14 and 15 grams. Toros usually are around 18 and 20 grams. Gordos can go all the way up to about 20 to 26 grams. I know there's a big gap within the range. I'm just throwing off the cuff right here and giving you some kind of an idea of what these things should weigh. So with knowing that, when I hold a cigar, if it feels too light now without damaging the cigar, and if the owner is in the humidor, I let them know, "Hey, I'm just going to check for soft spots on the cigar." So what you do is you just lightly give it a little bit of a touch test and then touch the cigar all the way up and down and see if there's any soft spots.

If there's a lot of soft spots in this cigar, it definitely is not a premium cigar. Now the tobaccos could be very good and long-filler tobaccos just because it's long-filler does not truly mean it's truly a premium cigar because they haven't given it the time, it hasn't really aged. I don't want to spend my money on this cigar, but so far, this cigar in my hand. I truly don't even know what this is. I got this out of my own collection, somebody gave me, it had a cellophane on it, but I had no band. So I am truly giving this thing a test. So far, the seam looks great, it has no blotches, it weighs pretty good. And also there are no soft spots and I get a good smell. It has a very aromatic sense to it. So I'm going to judge this as a premium cigar. Anyways, let me know in the comments, what you guys do to see or to know if it is a premium cigar or not. Other than that, I'll see you guys next week. Remember to follow us on Instagram, like us on Facebook, and remember, tell your friends to subscribe to our YouTube channel. See you guys.