How To Light Your Cigar
Now that you have cut the cap off your cigar, you’re ready to light it. This is a relatively straight forward process, but below are some tips on the correct way to do this using either cigar matches or a lighter.
When it comes to lighting your cigar, the most important thing is that the flame is tasteless and odourless. This means any match or propane/butane cigarette lighter will do the job.
For this guide, we will focus on lighting your cigar with a lighter.
Key Reminder: Whilst lighters like Zippos look cool, you should not use a petrol style lighter to light a cigar, as the fuel in these lighters may spoil the taste of your cigar.
To get the best out of your cigar, we follow an approach called “Toasting”. This is where we hold the end of the cigar just over the tip of the flame from your match or lighter, rather than the entire flame. This approach slowly heats the end of the cigar for a nice even burn, and will not scorch the tobacco.
Slowly rotating the cigar in your index finger and thumb whilst toasting the cigar will ensure you get a nice even burn.
Check out our video tutorial on how to light a cigar here.
Top Tip: If its windy outside, use two matches at the same time for a stronger flame.
Follow this process until the cigar is lit. To test that your cigar is correctly lit, you can gently blow on the lit end, and it should glow orange. If there are any dark patches that are not yet glowing, continue to light your cigar until the whole surface glows when you blow on it.
Great job! You are now ready to move onto the next step, smoking your cigar. Click this link to go to our instructions on the correct way to enjoy your cigar! (click here)