Wiki · Terms
Short definitions in Smoke Rings language. Each entry that has a full page is linked. This list will grow; the words themselves do not.
A
- Accordion bunch
- A bunching method that folds filler leaves in a Z or book fold rather than rolling each one into a tube.
- Aging cigars
- Holding finished cigars in stable humidity so harshness fades and the blend settles.
- Ash
- The burned remnant on the foot of the cigar. Color and length are clues, not trophies.
B
- Belicoso
- A short figurado with a tapered, pointed head — a compact torpedo.
- Binder
- The sturdy leaf that holds the filler bunch together before the wrapper goes on.
- Blend
- The recipe of leaves in a cigar — and, in shop talk, a cigar that mixes countries.
- Box-press
- Squaring a round cigar by pressing it in the box or in a press so the sides take a gentle rectangle.
- Burn
- How the cigar combusts: even, tunneled, canoed, or out.
C
- Cameroon wrapper
- African-grown wrapper, often toothy and reddish-brown, used as a distinctive cover leaf.
- Candela
- A green wrapper, heat-cured so the chlorophyll stays in the leaf.
- Capa
- Spanish for wrapper — the outer leaf of the cigar.
- Capote
- Spanish for the binder leaf — the sheet that holds the bunch before the wrapper is applied.
- Churchill
- A long parejo, classically about 7 inches by 47 ring, named for Winston Churchill.
- Claro
- A light-colored wrapper, typically tan to pale brown.
- Cocoa
- A tasting-note word for chocolate, cacao husk, or cocoa-powder sweetness — especially on darker wrappers.
- Colorado
- A reddish-brown wrapper color, between claro and maduro on the usual scale.
- Connecticut shade
- Shade-grown wrapper from Connecticut-seed tobacco, classically from the Connecticut River Valley and also grown in Ecuador and elsewhere.
- Corojo
- A Cuban-seed tobacco originally associated with wrapper, now grown in several New World countries.
- Corona
- A classic parejo, traditionally longer and thinner than a robusto — often near 5½ × 42.
- Criollo
- An older Cuban-seed tobacco, used for filler, binder, and sometimes wrapper depending on the farm.
- Cuban cigar
- A cigar grown and made in Cuba — a puro by law and by practice, not merely Cuban-seed leaf from elsewhere.
- Cuban-seed
- Tobacco grown from seeds that descend from Cuban plants, usually in another country.
- Cutter
- The tool that opens the cap — guillotine, V-cut, punch, or scissors — so air can move.
D
- Dominican cigar
- A cigar rolled in the Dominican Republic, often with mixed-origin leaf, and sometimes a Dominican puro.
- Double binder
- Two binder leaves on one bunch, used for strength, combustion, or a specific taste.
- Draw
- How easily air and smoke move through the cigar when you puff.
E
- Earth
- A tasting-note word for soil-like, mineral, or dusty flavor — a description, not a lab result.
- Ecuadorian wrapper
- Wrapper leaf grown in Ecuador, often Connecticut-seed or habano-seed, under high cloud cover.
- Embargo
- U.S. trade restrictions that, from the early 1960s, kept Cuban cigars out of the legal American market.
- Entubado
- A bunching method that rolls each filler leaf into a tube so air has channels through the cigar.
F
- Fermentation
- The controlled sweating of cured tobacco in piles (pilones) that drives off harshness and develops aroma.
- Figurado
- A shaped cigar — pointed, closed, or tapered — as opposed to a straight parejo.
- Filler
- The leaves inside the cigar — the blend that determines most of the strength and much of the flavor.
G
- Guillotine
- A straight-cut cutter: one or two blades that slice the cap off square.
H
- Habano wrapper
- Sun-grown wrapper from Cuban-seed (habano) tobacco, typically reddish-brown and oilier than shade Connecticut.
- Honduran cigar
- A cigar made in Honduras, often around Danlí and Copán, with local and Cuban-seed leaf.
- Humidor
- A closed box or cabinet that holds cigars at a stable humidity, often lined in Spanish cedar.
L
- Lancero
- A long, very thin parejo, often near 7 × 38, with a high wrapper-to-filler ratio.
- Leather
- A tasting-note word for a tannic, hide-like, or saddlery quality in the smoke.
- Ligero
- Upper-stalk filler leaf: denser, stronger, slower to burn than the leaves below it.
- Ligero leaf
- Tobacco taken from the top primings: slow to cure, slow to ferment, and slow to burn.
- Lonsdale
- A long, slender parejo, traditionally around 6 to 6½ inches by a 42–44 ring.
M
- Maduro
- A dark wrapper, usually the result of longer fermentation rather than a separate seed.
N
- Natural wrapper
- A wrapper left in a brown, untreated color range — not a candela, and not taken as far as a maduro.
- Nicaraguan cigar
- A cigar made of Nicaraguan leaf — or made in Nicaragua — especially the puros of Estelí, Condega, and Jalapa.
O
- Oscuro
- A very dark wrapper, darker than a typical maduro — nearly black in some lots.
P
- Parejo
- A straight-sided cigar with an open foot and a capped head — the ordinary cylinder.
- Perfecto
- A figurado closed or tapered at both ends, with a bulge in the middle.
- Plume vs mold
- Plume (or bloom) is a fine, dry, pale dust of oils; mold is fuzzy, often colored, and a storage failure.
- Priming
- Harvesting tobacco by leaf level, from the bottom of the plant upward, as each level ripens.
- Punch
- A small circular blade that bores a hole in the cap instead of slicing it off.
- Puro
- A cigar whose wrapper, binder, and filler all come from one country.
- Puro vs blend
- Single-country cigars versus recipes that mix leaf from more than one origin.
R
- Relative humidity
- The amount of water vapor in the air compared with what the air can hold — the number on a humidor hygrometer.
- Ring gauge
- The diameter of a cigar, measured in 64ths of an inch.
- Robusto
- A short, stout parejo, commonly about 4½ to 5½ inches by a 50-ring, give or take.
S
- Seasoning a humidor
- Charging the cedar with moisture before the cigars go in, so the wood does not dry the leaf out.
- Seco
- Mid-stalk filler leaf, used for aroma and balance between the light volado and the heavy ligero.
- Spanish cedar
- Cedrela wood used to line humidors and make many cigar boxes; aromatic, and good at holding moisture.
- Strength vs body
- Strength is the nicotine hit; body is the weight of flavor and smoke — related, not identical.
T
- Torch lighter
- A jet-flame lighter used to toast and light a cigar without bathing it in a sooty yellow flame.
- Toro
- A thick parejo, commonly around 6 inches by 50–54 ring — longer than a robusto, fatter than a classic corona.
- Tripa
- Spanish for filler — the interior leaves of the cigar.
V
- V-cut
- A cutter that takes a wedge out of the head, leaving a V-shaped notch.
- Viso
- A priming between seco and ligero — more body than seco, more burn than the heaviest top leaf.
- Vitola
- A cigar’s size and shape — the factory name for a length, ring gauge, and silhouette.
- Volado
- Lower-stalk filler leaf, grown for combustion more than for flavor.
W
- Wrapper
- The outer leaf of a cigar — the one you see, and a large share of what you taste.