Many people have many different opinions on how to best taste a cigar. Whether you take a few puffs to first heat the oils of a cigar before that long puff to truly taste it.... or if you "swish" the smoke around in your mouth like you would with wine. Everyone has there own method. Recently a Rocky Patel representative rocked my world with some knowledge he was kind enough to pass on.
He began by telling me a story about a trip he took to the Dominican. While sitting around with some locals having a smoke he noticed that they weren't smoking the same way he was. While he had been smoking for quite some time he had never seen anyone take in cigar smoke and blow it out their nose. With cigarettes yes but you don't inhale cigars. He quickly asked the locals what exactly they were doing. They told him that you cant get the full flavor out of a cigar until you use your entire palette to taste it. You don't inhale the cigar but simply use your nose to blow out the smoke. Since your nose is the home to the majority of taste and odor receptors this is where you taste 80 to 90 percent of the cigars real flavor. While it is hard to master this without inhaling it does pay off.
I was skeptical. How could I have been missing something for all this time I had been smoking cigars? He made it sound like there was some elusive hidden flavor in every cigar that could only be revealed this way. He was persistent so I gave it a shot.
The first try was an utter disaster. I pretty much inhaled everything. After the burning sensation left my lungs and I stopped coughing I got back on the horse and tried again. He said to roll the smoke to the back of your mouth and push it out your nose. I got it partially right the second time. The cigar I had been smoking for twenty minutes or so suddenly had flavors that seemed to spring out of nowhere. I could pick out certain tastes that were previously completely dormant. I couldn't believe it. I thanked him and practiced the technique so that I didn't look like the idiot coughing and hacking up a lung because he didn't realize you weren't supposed to inhale. After I got the technique down it made me appreciate cigars that much more. This includes the ones that I didn't necessarily like the first time around.
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2 comments:
I was actually smoking while I read this post so I tried the new technique. I wasn't able to appreciate any new flavors because frankly my first few tries were also disasters. I'll keep practicing. Thanks for the tip.
This must have been some secret within the pipe smoking world - that is where I learned to do it and just assumed you did it with cigars too. Since your sense of smell is used to taste things as well (ever had a cold and eaten flavorful food only to find it bland and tasteless?) it only makes sense to exhale at least a few times to get the true flavor.
Dan, While smoking this past weekend I did it a few times and really began to appreciate (good or bad) the flavor of what we were smoking.
W&S describes the process perfectly, roll the smoke to the back of your throat and breath hard out your nose. I sort of "swallow" the smoke but before it goes far exhale sharply out my nose and it works. The first few times you do it there is burning and it feels like someone ran razor blades through your nose. After a couple of times you begin to realize the potential of the method.
I'm glad that there are people in the cigar world beginning to push this as another way to experience the smoke. It definitely does make a difference.
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