Blog & Cigar News | Mardo Cigars

Welcome to another episode of Mondays with Mardo's, I'm Gerard and today we're going to go over on how to light your cigar like a true aficionado. We're going to go over some dos and don'ts. But before we get going, I need you to click on that subscribe button, and click on the bell to be notified every single week of new episodes, Mondays with Mardo’s.

Before we get into it on how to properly light a cigar, we're going to talk about the lighters I have in front of me. These are butane charged lighters. The difference between butane and lighter fluid is the odor. Lighter fluid has a very strong odor to it. The byproducts can ruin and tarnish the flavor of a cigar. So we do not want to use any kind of lighter that has lighter fluid in it. It is such a no-no, and do not do this, that we don't even have one to demonstrate. However, we do have lighters that have butane in them, and there is a difference between these lighters and type of flames that we're going to talk about. This is a torch lighter, that is a single flame torch. Even though this is also a torch lighter, but it is a triple flame torch, and there's a difference on how to use them and how to use these properly to light your cigar.

Next, we're going to look at something like this is a soft flame lighter, and this is also used to light a cigar. And how do you approach a soft flame is completely different than a torch, and the way you light the cigar is going to be completely different. Now, here we have matches, also gives off a very soft flame, and I do have some cedar sticks here. So therefore I can lengthen the time of my flame because this is going to go out pretty quick and it's going to burn my fingers. So let's get right into a demonstration.

Demonstration number one, we have a single torch, and we have a triple torch. Remember, this is not a cigarette. You do not want to hold the flame directly onto the cigar. You want to give it a nice little toast. So we have the single flame and we're going to see the differences in operation. A single flame torch works very well. Now you want to toast the cigar, and give it a nice little swirl as you're toasting the cigar. Let it get a little bit heated before you take a drag. And even before I do that, I give it a little blow and see what areas are not glowing because it is not lit. So I'll continue the process.

Now for the sake of the video, I'm going to show you guys how the triple flame operates completely different. Now this has three flames in one, and you're going to see that the distance that I'm keeping my wrist from the cigar is much further than a single flame and it ... if I'm not careful, I could torch this thing. So therefore, I'm going to keep my distance and give it a little swirl. As you can see it lights it much faster, more heat output, and it does the job a lot quicker.

Now I have this cigar lit very, very well. Nice cherry, the burn is pretty even all the way around, and I'm just going to give it a couple of puffs. You don't want to hot box the cigar. And just like that, there's your first demonstration on how to use a single flame or a triple flame lighter. The triple flame, in my opinion, obviously did much better performance, but it does use a lot more butane, and also you have to be a pretty experienced guy to light the cigar. It's not rocket science, but a little practice does help.

Demonstration number two, we're going to show you how to toast and light a cigar with a soft flame. Now I know in a previous demonstration, I said that you do not want the flame to directly hit the cigar. So with a soft flame, you'll have to do it, but we'll show you how to do it like a true aficionado, without tarnishing the burn line on a cigar. So I'm going to go off with the matches first. I'm going to make my cedar strip a little bit thinner, and the reason why I'm using cedar strip, because as I mentioned, this match is very, very small. So therefore I'm going to actually, going to to start with two of them and let's go with that, voila. And then what I want to do is I want to make sure I burn off the sulfur. I don't know if it is exactly sulfur, but every time that lights up, it does give me that smell of a little bit. So I want to get rid of that smell before I even introduced the flame to the cigar. Yes, absolutely. I smell that right there.

So I'll go ahead and use the match to light my cedar stick, pulling it upright. We'll give the flame a little bit more fuel. And therefore, now what I'll do is just lightly introduce this cigar to the flame. As you can see, toasting it is completely different and a lot slower of a process than a torch flame. Now, a lot of cigar snobs like to take the time, they find this as an art. Now, if I want to do the same thing, but I want to go a little bit faster, or not be worried that I'm not going to have enough cedar, I'm going to go ahead and use a soft flame lighter.

So a soft flame lighter is going to essentially do the same thing. But the difference here is I have continuous fuel because this holds butane. And as you can see, I am burning it a little bit. So, so far I prefer a torch flame over soft flame. And this is where I will have to go directly to the flame, to get my cigar lit, and voila. It is lit. It's got a full cherry around it. Great tasting cigars.

So that is the demonstration that we have for you today. Let us know in the comments, what are your methods of how to properly light a cigar? I will see you next week. My name is Gerard, remember to follow us on Instagram, like us on Facebook, and remember to tell your friends to subscribe to our YouTube channel. See you guys.