How to properly cut a high-profile cigar?

The more experienced cigar aficionado will likely know about these techniques, but for the up and coming smoke entrepreneur, the true way to cut one can often be hit and miss. It is not that there are any secrets or difficult manners in which to accomplish this, yet there are a few minor points that you need to know

First, you need to know why there is a proper and improper way to do it. Excellent hand-rolled Cuban cigars are very delicately sculpted, as if they were a form of art. This process is very precarious. This is why you will see the veteran cigar smoker handling his twenty-dollar Robusto as if it were a valuable piece of china. Anything with this much time, creativity, and effort involved is worth a gentle hand. However, beyond the artistic aspect of cutting, there is the chance for destruction. Occasionally, if you cut a cigar wrong, the binder will begin to come apart. Regardless of how much money you have at your disposal, the destruction of a fine cigar should be considered a crime.

Foremost, make sure that your cutter is of high quality. You can get the cheap ones at any given smoke shop, but the finer ones are a little harder to locate. Many can be found through the larger cigar manufacturers websites online, or even on eBay.

Once you have your cutter, inspect your cigar first. Look at the head of the cigar. Make sure that it is all in order and that there are no ragged looking spots. There should not be. What you should see is the cap, a small end covering at the base. Now, the cap is not very thick at all, so you have to be careful. You don’t want to cut off the entire cap. That would just be extremely wasteful. On the contrary, you only want to go through the very tip of the cap, taking of a minimum amount of the actual cigar.

Before you start hacking away, keep in mind the sword theory. Ancient warriors discovered, through much trial and error, that the key to properly beheading someone was not from pure force, but via speed. The faster the blade was moving, the more material it would cut through and the cleaner the cut. The same holds true in this case. When you clip the tip, don’t do it slowly. Snap the cutter really fast. This gives you a cleaner cut with no tearing.

Lastly, no matter the extent of quality and the price paid for your cutter, it will become dull. The result will be the incessant ripping, tearing and rending of a lovely cigar. Keep an eye on how your cutter is cutting. If you begin to feel resistance while cutting, it is time to find another. Don’t grow attached to that particular cutter. They do not have a very long life.

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