Cigars for beginners, why a beginner cigar is an odd label.

A little preamble

Just in case you don’t actually care about this blog that I poured my blood sweat and tears into and just want to see what we suggest for a beginners first cigar, here you go, no hard feelings, game is game.

Beginner Taster (Small Varied Sampler Pack)	Our favourite Cigars for Beginners	Stolen Moments (Short Smoke Sampler Pack)

 

Perdomo 10th Anniversary Connecticut Robusto	A.J. Fernandez New World Oscuro Petit Corona	Alec Bradley Black Market Punk

 

Mild Mannered (Mild Body Beginner Sampler pack)	Middle Distance (Medium Body Sampler pack)	All The Way (Full Body Sampler pack)

 

The Proper Intro

The concept of a beginner cigar is often overlooked in the industry, as beginners are generally not the ones spending the big bucks. At CaLaDa, we have a slightly different approach.

We were born out of the difficulty of finding cigars as beginners. Between unusable website design, irrelevant product descriptions, and gatekeeping within the industry, we felt a little bit lost when trying to get into the hobby. We thought there had to be a better way to get into cigars without already having an in-depth knowledge of the industry, or resorting to trial and error, like the fat cats in their cigar lounges who are doing the gatekeeping.

In this way, the concept of a beginner cigar is very close to our heart at CaLaDa, and helping you find your first smoke is really what we were made for.

 

Rethinking Beginner Cigars: It's More Than Just "Mild"

When entering the world of cigars, the advice is often to start out with a mild bodied (flavour strength) and strength (nicotine strength) cigar. We think that this perspective comes from a very 2 dimensional view of the burgeoning cigar smoker. For a product that is all about personal enjoyment, in the same way that food and drink is, a one size fits all approach, to us at least, really misses the mark about what cigars are all about.

Regardless of your experience level, when it comes to cigars, we think that, in order to maximise your enjoyment, you should be more focused on aligning a cigar with your preferred flavour preferences, while this sounds complex at first, this explanation should help you out. 

 

A dark, complex, full-bodied cigar can be a beginner smoke

If you enjoy robust flavours like dark chocolate, espresso, or smoky barbecue, you might find cigars with bold profiles more enjoyable than milder options. 

A cigar like the A.J Fernandez Blend 15 short Robusto is a massively flavourful cigar full of peppery, dark chocolate, earthy notes with a decent hit of nicotine to go alongside it, the thing that denotes this as a beginner cigar in our opinion is its price and size, at just £11.99 and with a 45 minute smoke time, this is a cigar that you can try, not like, throw away, and feel like you haven’t been tricked. 

All of our cigars have descriptions of their flavour notes, smoke times and nicotine levels right there in the description section, allowing you to easily pick out what you like (or think you might like).

 

Nicotine Experience

Beginners aren’t always new to nicotine. If you consume it through cigarettes, vapes, or other forms, cigars with medium or full strength might feel more natural, rather than overwhelming. If you’re expecting a certain nicotine kick from a cigar but purchase a so called “beginner” smoke, you might feel a bit unsatisfied with the experience overall, our general guidelines are as follows:

Never consumed nicotine: Mild 

Social Smoker: Mild-Mid 

Smoker / Vaper / Snuser etc: Mild-Mid-Full

Even then, you can smoke a cigar, feel like the nicotine is getting a bit too much, and put it down. Feel free to walk away from it for an hour and come back and light it, you can even smoke it the next day, or week, if you so choose.

This is what makes small cigars so great for beginners, if you don’t smoke, a 6 inch cigar may make you feel sick, whereas a full nicotine, 45 minute smoke, like the Joya De Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco, probably won’t. 

Nicotine and body aren’t directly correlated, if you want a cigar with deep dark flavours, you don’t have to pick out something that's going to make the room spin. A perfect example of this is the Drew Estate Undercrown 10th Anniversary Robusto, a cigar full of dark roasted coffee, earthy and woody flavours thats mild enough for even a beginner to smoke from top to tail.

 

What Actually Makes A Good Beginner Cigar?

Size Matters:

Smaller cigars, such as petit coronas or robustos, allow you to explore cigar smoking without committing to a long session. Our beginner taster sample pack is the perfect example of this, containing four cigars from around the new world, each with different flavours and experiences, all held together with the common theme, that they are all 30-45 minute smokes (and rather cheap).

Quality Construction:

Choose cigars with a good draw and even burn to avoid frustration, while the enjoyment of flavours or nicotine tolerance might not differ between a cigar beginner and an aficionado, the ability to manage a cigar does.

A poorly constructed cigar might burn unevenly, while this can be managed and fixed with some experience, this can be incredibly frustrating to a new smoker. Fortunately all of our cigars are hand rolled and of the finest quality to assure that you won’t have any construction problems, if you somehow do get a cigar from us with a cracked wrapper or other construction issues, let us know and we will sort it out.

Price Point:

Starting with affordable hand-rolled cigars ensures a premium experience without the hefty price tag, you don’t know if you even like cigars yet, its probably not the best idea to go out and spend £40 on a cigar, hate it and never try cigars again, you could buy 4 or 5 cigars from us for that price and get a really good idea of what cigars have to offer.

Some Extra Things to Consider as a Cigar Beginner

Try out some pairings:

Enjoy your cigar with a complementary drink like coffee, soft drink or whiskey to enhance its flavours, check out our guide to pairings here, if you can’t be bothered to read it, essentially it boils down to finding a drink that you enjoy, and drinking it while you smoke a cigar, it's a real simple process.

Don’t smoke on an empty stomach:

Even if you have a high nicotine tolerance, nicotine can mess with your blood sugar and make you feel dizzy or sick, don’t feel like you have to finish a cigar just because you started it. Much like a cigarette, we feel that a cigar after dinner on a warm summer evening is the perfect opportunity to indulge.

Experiment:

While trial and error shouldn’t be the only starting point to find out what you like, in order to really nail down your preferences you’ll have to shop around a little bit, fortunately we’ve simplified this too, with our beginner sampler pack.

This pack essentially distills everything talked about here into a product, 4, premium tobacco, well constructed, small cigars with a variety of nicotine levels, flavour strengths and flavour notes to help you dip your toes into the water without spending too much.

 

Final Thoughts

When choosing a cigar, focus on your flavour preferences and experience with nicotine rather than outdated assumptions about what a "beginner cigar" should be. After all, the best cigar is the one that suits your taste, not someone else's expectations.

 

Check out our beginner sampler pack here!

Check out our beginner cigar page here!

Check out all of our cigars here!