Cigar Structure
Handmade cigars have three constituent parts--the filler, the binder, and the wrapper. Each of the parts has a different function when the cigar is actually smoked.
The outside wrapper (or capa) dictates the cigar's appearance. It is always grown under guaze and fermented separately from other leaves to ensure that it is smooth, not too oily, and has a subtle bouguet. It also has to be soft and pliable so that it is easy for the roller to handle.
Wrapper leaves from different plantations have varying colors (and thus subtly different flavors, more sugary if they are darker, for instance) and are used for different brands. Good wrapper leaves have to be elastic and must have no protruding veins. They have to be matured for between one year and 18 months, the longer the better. Wrqppers of handmade non-Cuban cigars might come from Connecticut, Cameroon, Sumatra, Honduras, Mexico, Costa Rica or Nicaragua. The wrapper is the most expensive part of the cigar.
The binder leaf (capote) holds the cigar together and is usually two halves of coarse sun-grown leaf from the upper part of the plant, chosen because of its good tensile strength.
The filler is made of separate leaves folded by hand along their length, to allow a passage through which smoke can be drawn when the cigar if lit. The fold can be properly achieved by hand and is the primary reason why machine-made cigars are less satisfactory. This style of arranging the filler is sometimes called the "book" style--which means that if you were to cut the cigar down its length with a razor, the filler leaves would resemble the pages of a book. In the past, the filler was sometimes arrangedusing the "entubar" method--with up to eight narrow tubes of tobacco leaf rolled into the binder--making the cigar very slow burning.
Three different types of leaf are normally used for the filler (in fatter sizes, like Montecristo No. 2, a fourth type is also used). Ligero leaves from the top of the plant are dark and full in flavor as a result of oils produced by exposure to sunlight. They have to be matured for at least two years before they can be used in cigar making. Ligero tobacco is always placed in the middle of the cigar, because it burns slowly. Seco leaves, from the middle of the plant, are much lighter in color and flavor. They are usually used after maturing for around 18 months. Volado leaves, from the bottom of the plant, have little or no flavor, but they have good burning qualities. They are matured for about nine months before use.
The precise blend of these different leaves in the filler dictates the flavor of each brand and size. A full-bodied cigar like Ramon Allones will, for instance, have a high proportion of ligero in its filler, than a mild cigar such as H. Upmann, where seco and volado will predominate. Small, thin cigars will very often have no ligero tobacco leaf in them at all. The consistencyof a blend is achieved by using tobacco from different harvest and farms, so a large stock of matured tobacco is essential to the process.
Wrappers...
The wrapper is the outside layer of tobacco on a cigar. It gives a cigar one of its primary flavor components. Wrappers are usually very high quality leaves, and are available in colors ranging from double claro, the lightest to Oscuro, the darkest. Wrappers are very important to the taste of a fine cigar.
Binders....
Binder leaves are the intermediate leaf used to hold the bunch of filler tobacco together. These vary considerably from one manufacturer to the next.
Filler...
Filler is the bunch of tobacco found at the center of the cigar. Generally the filler is responsible for determining how strong a cigar will smoke. There are two types of filler: long filler, which contains the whole leaf running from the head to the foot of the cigar, and short filler, comprised of scraps of tobacco (often the trimmed ends of long fillers).
The blending of wrappers, fillers and binders determines the overall flavor of a cigar. There is an art to blending tobaccos and as you smoke different cigars, you will notice how the various tobaccos interplay with one another.
Manufacturers often use the same types of tobacco in different sizes, producing different tastes. Often the consumer will perceive this as the same "blend". There is a difference however - it's in the proportions of each type of leaf used. An experienced roller may use different proportions of the tobaccos in different sizes to allow for that size differences. In a smaller ring cigar, the binder and wrapper have a greater influence on the taste, for instance. The blender will allow for this difference by re-proportioning the filler blend. It's just one of those details that requires years of training among master rollers. (and of course, one of the reasons smokers will prefer the taste of one size over another of the same blend....
Ring size is the cigar's diameter, measured in 64ths of an inch.
Thus a 32 ring cigar will measure 1/2 inch in diameter. Although many catalogs list ring
sizes, they may deviate from each by a couple of points on specific cigars