How do the packaged cigars available from drugstores and the like compare to the real cigar smokers cigars?
Packaged cigars like those seen at register 12 at Wal-Mart include ingredients other than tobacco such as paper, saltpeter, and Glycerin (to keep them moist). A real cigar contains only tobacco. Most better cigars contain premium quality leaves, and are constructed of “long-filler”. In a “long filler” cigar, the leaves run the length of the cigar, rather than being cuttings or scraps of tobacco left over from better cigars. Sort of like KFC having nightmares about the fact that they are tossing away the beaks and feet, cigar makers want to use all of the tobacco in some form rather than throw it out, ergo less expensive cigars with the same tobacco but in less than ideal form. Don’t get us wrong… the cuttings from premium tobaccos are the same tobacco as in their premium, top-shelf brothers, just stuffed differently. More on the difference between long and short fillers is found elsewhere on this web site, as is the difference between machine made and handmade puros. As a good rule o
