Blog & Cigar News | Mardo Cigars

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Hi and welcome to another episode on Mondays with Mardo's, I'm Gerard. This week, we're going to go through a little 101 class. We're going to talk about how to cut and light your cigar. Just as simple as that. Before I get going, I need to click on the Subscribe button, click on the bell to be notified every single week of new episodes on Mondays with Mardo's.

So right here, I have a Robusto Jake Wyatt Appendix, one of my favorite mild cigars. We're going to talk about how we're going to cut this cigar. So whenever a cigar is rolled, it starts from the cap down to the foot. Then when it's finished, they actually put a cap leaf on top of the cap. Cap on a cap. What you want to do is you want to cut right above the cap line. So if I look at a cigar, I'm always going to see that there's going to be a little line right along the edges of the cap line. That is exactly what it's called, it's called a cap line.

So when I cut, I want to cut just a little bit above that. If you cut below, what's going to happen is you're going to break the seam of the wrapper and it's going to start unraveling diagonally because cigars are rolled in a diagonal fashion. So when you get your cigar cutter and you want to do the guillotine cut, make sure that you cut right above that.

A lot of times some cutters have a stop in the back. It's usually about three millimeters. What I mean by a stop is you could see right here, the cigar doesn't go all the way through. So if you do want to buy a cutter to make your life a little easier, you can get a cigar cutter that has a backstop. I know that there's a term for that backstop, but as of right now, I can't think of it, but my worry and my concern right here is to get a successful cut.

There's a little fray right there, it's not a big deal, I can just clean up. As you can see, I still have that seam line right there from the cap and that's going to bind the cigar still together. I'm going to get a fantastic draw because I have a clean cut right there. Now, if you want to have a different kind of cut, we have punches, which I don't really like a punch. Les Fines Lames makes this bracelet that gives you a punch. This is like last resort for me is because the incision is going to be very small in diameter and sometimes you don't get enough of a draw. Also, if you need to get a better draw because the cigars rolled tightly, I can't really do that with a punch. That's why I always like to have a cutter so I can cut a little bit more.

Now this cutter is a dual, not necessarily dual sport, but it's a double cutter is because it has the V-cut on the other side. So if I don't want to have a full, clean cut, I can use a V-cut. V-cuts really is a no brainer. You just stick the cigar in the hole right there, and then you press it down and you got yourself a V-cut. You're not going to see a very pronounced V-cut on this one because I've already made the guillotine cut. These are the three different ways that you can cut a cigar. You can go even more extreme. You can do a cross cut, which is just basically crossing the V-cut perpendicular and making yourself a cross.

Now, when it comes to checking the draw, I just give it a little blow. So make sure I don't get like any saw dust in my mouth. So a good little dry pull or whatever you call it. I'm not very big with terms, I just know how to do things. I'm trying to help you guys out and hopefully I'm doing a good job. So we got ourselves the cut.

I went over to three different kinds of cuts, and now we're going to light the cigar. A big, big no-no. You do not want to use any kind of lighter that uses lighter fluid. We want to stay away from fluids. Even though butane can turn into a fluid in a certain state, but we want to use butane because it's a gas. Therefore, you want to make sure that you get a clean flame. That's the ticket here. It's not about having a torch, although I'm going to use a torch. Butane gives you a much cleaner flame and you can see it's the blue color here. That's telling me that it's combusting at a higher temperature and it's allowing that to happen because it's butane. I think I'm right. So I don't know, there might be some chemistry teachers watching this video and think I'm full of whatever.

The focus right here you can see is that it's all about me pre-lighting it and this is called toasting it. The reason why I want to do that is if you try to light this like a cigarette and you go this way, it's only going to light the bottom part of the cigar. So you want to sure it makes the whole entire circumference. That's why you kind of want to toast it a little bit. Then you take a couple pulls while introducing the flame to the cigar.

Now, I want to blow into the cigar. When I do that, I can see a full cherry. Once I have that full cherry, I have a cigar lit and cut to my perfection, or to my liking. I got to stop trying to get fancy with words. Just like that you guys. So let me know in the comments, if this was educational? Was it helpful? Or what else we'd like to see? Other than that, I'll see you guys next week. Remember to follow us on Instagram, like us on Facebook, and remember to tell your friends to subscribe to our YouTube channel. See ya.