By Peter | VDG Cigars
You are holding something that took years to grow, months to ferment, weeks to roll, and the hands of someone who has spent a lifetime learning how. Most people who smoke their first premium cigar do not know that. Most people who have smoked for years still do not know half of what is inside this guide.
This is the most comprehensive, personally credentialed cigar resource available in English. Everything here is written by me — Peter, certified cigar sommelier, ten years of direct experience — based on cigars actually smoked and founders actually interviewed. No recycled content. No affiliate pressure. No reviews written without the cigar in hand.
Read more about who I am and why I built this site.
How to Use This Guide
This page covers everything. That means it is not meant to be read top to bottom in one sitting — it is a map. Find where you are and start there.
If you are completely new to cigars — go straight to Start Here: Cigar Basics for Beginners. Read the beginner guide, the flavor guide, and the buying guide before anything else. Everything else builds on those three.
If you smoke occasionally and want to go deeper — the Sense of Taste section and the Technique section will give you more from every cigar you already smoke. The Pairing section is worth reading alongside them.
If you have a storage problem right now — go directly to Cigar Storage or Troubleshooting. Both sections are built around specific problems with specific fixes.
If you want to understand the brands and the people behind them — the Interviews section contains original, unsponsored conversations with brand founders that do not exist anywhere else. Start with the Zaya Younan interview or the Tony Barrios interview.
If you want a specific recommendation — go to Top Lists or the Ratings Archive. Every cigar listed has been personally reviewed.
Start Here: Cigar Basics for Beginners
Everything a new smoker needs before spending money on cigars, gear, or a humidor.
A Beginner’s Guide to Cigars: Body, Strength, Sizes and How to Choose Your First Cigar — The most important starting point on this site. Covers body, strength, vitola formats, and how to choose a cigar that matches your experience level. Read this first.
Best Cigars for Beginners: Top 30 Picks for 2026 — Thirty specific cigars, personally reviewed, recommended for new smokers at different stages.
The Best 5 Cigars for Beginners to Try — A tighter shortlist if you want fewer but fully confident choices.
10 Exceptional Cigars for Beginners: Smooth and Flavorful — Ten reviewed entry-level cigars that prioritise accessibility and flavor over complexity.
What Do Cigars Taste Like? Complete Flavor Guide — Sets honest expectations. The flavors in premium cigars are real, specific, and learnable.
How to Buy Cigars: Complete Beginner’s Shopping Guide — How to navigate a humidor, read construction, and avoid the most common mistakes before you spend anything.
How to Inspect a Cigar Before Buying It — The physical checks that separate a well-made cigar from one you will regret buying.
Where to Buy Cigars: Online vs Brick and Mortar — The honest tradeoffs between buying online and in person.
How Much Does a Cigar Cost? Price Guide for Every Budget — What drives cigar pricing and what you can realistically expect at each level.
Best Cigar Budget for Beginners: What You Actually Need to Spend — Honest numbers. What it actually takes to have a genuinely good first experience.
Are $20 Cigars Really Worth It? — At what point the price jump starts to make sense, and when it does not.
Is an Expensive Premium Cigar Always a Better Choice Than a Cheap Cigar? — The nuanced answer. Premium does not always mean better for the moment.
What Makes a Premium Cigar Premium? — The specific differences in tobacco sourcing, construction, and aging that separate a handmade premium cigar from everything else.
When Are Cigars Ready to Smoke After Purchase? — A question most new smokers do not think to ask. Freshly purchased cigars often need time before they smoke at their best.
Gas Station Cigars: Are They Really Cigars? — The honest answer before you waste money on something that will not give you a real premium experience.
5 Rookie Mistakes New Cigar Smokers Make (and How to Avoid Them) — The specific errors that ruin the experience for most beginners.
Cigar Subscription Boxes — Are They Worth It? — When subscription services add value and when they do not.
Understanding Cigars: Anatomy, Tobacco and Construction
Before you can evaluate a cigar, you need to understand what it is made of and why each component matters.
Understanding Cigar Anatomy: A Complete Breakdown of What’s Inside Your Smoke — How wrapper, binder, and filler each contribute to flavor, burn, and draw. The post that makes everything else make sense.
The Essential Guide to Cigar Wrappers: Understanding What Makes Each Leaf Unique — The wrapper contributes the majority of what you taste. Every major type covered — Connecticut, Maduro, Habano, Corojo, Cameroon.
Maduro vs Connecticut Wrapper: Key Differences Every Cigar Smoker Should Know — The two most commonly encountered wrapper categories compared directly.
Long Filler vs Short Filler Cigars: The Complete Guide — Why the construction inside the cigar matters as much as the wrapper outside.
Mild vs Medium vs Full-Bodied Cigars: What’s the Real Difference? — Body and strength are not the same thing. This guide separates the two clearly.
Understand Body vs Strength in a Cigar — A deep dive into the most commonly confused terms in cigar evaluation.
Body of a Cigar: Full, Medium, and Mild Explained — How to understand and use body descriptions when choosing and discussing cigars.
Cigar Sizes Explained: Ring Gauge vs Length (And Why It Matters) — How ring gauge and length affect the wrapper-to-filler ratio, flavor development, and smoke time.
The Ultimate Guide to Cigar Sizes: Inches and Millimeters — A complete size reference across all major vitolas in both inches and millimeters.
Robusto vs Toro vs Churchill vs Corona: Which Cigar Size Fits Your Moment? — The practical differences between the four most popular formats and how to choose by occasion and time.
What Is the Difference Between Churchill vs Toro Cigars? — A focused comparison of two formats that are often confused.
Belicoso vs Torpedo Cigars: What’s Different? (And Why It Matters) — The terminology the cigar industry uses inconsistently, clarified.
Box Pressed Cigars: A Beginner’s Guide to the Square-Shaped Smoke — What box pressing does to a cigar’s draw, burn, and flavor concentration.
Cigars vs Cigarettes: What’s the Difference? — The actual differences in tobacco quality, construction, nicotine delivery, and what it means to smoke each.
Cigar Sense of Taste: Training Your Palate
Tasting a cigar well is a learnable skill. Most smokers are experiencing a fraction of what the cigar was designed to deliver. These posts fix that.
How to Taste Notes in Cigars: The Complete Beginner’s Training Guide — Flavor detection is not a genetic gift. This guide explains exactly how to build and train a tasting palate.
Cigars: Sense of Taste and Smell — How Draw Depth Affects Flavor — How the depth of your draw changes smoke temperature and what your palate registers.
Cigars Sense of Taste: Why Cigars and Music Are a Perfect Pairing — The sensory relationship between music and flavor perception, and why the right soundtrack changes the cigar.
How to Retrohale a Cigar: The Complete Guide (2026) — Most cigar smokers experience only a fraction of the available flavor in every cigar they smoke. Retrohaling changes that completely. One of the most important guides on this site.
What Parts of the Brain Do Cigars Stimulate? — The neuroscience of what happens when you smoke a premium cigar — and why it feels the way it does.
When Should You Stop Smoking a Cigar? — There is no rule. Understanding heat, tar accumulation, and flavor evolution tells you everything you need to know.
Can You Relight a Cigar? — Yes — with conditions. The factors that determine whether a relight will give you a good smoke or a compromised one.
How To Avoid Getting Sick or Dizzy From a Strong Cigar — Nicotine sickness is completely preventable. The physiology behind it and the strategies that stop it.
How to Smoke a Cigar: Technique and Ritual
Proper technique is the difference between experiencing what a blend was designed to deliver and missing most of it.
How to Smoke a Cigar Properly: The Right Way for Beginners — Everything from cutting to lighting to pacing.
How to Cut a Cigar: The Complete Guide to Perfect Cuts Every Time — Cut types, tools, and why a bad cut is one of the most common causes of a disappointing smoke.
How to Light a Cigar Properly — Toasting the foot correctly before your first draw is one of the most overlooked fundamentals.
How Often Should You Puff a Cigar? — Puffing cadence affects temperature, flavor development, and smoking time. The ideal rhythm explained.
How to Put Out a Cigar Properly: The Complete Guide — The right way to end a session — and why stubbing it out is the wrong move.
Choosing the Right Cigar for Every Occasion
The right cigar is not just about flavor — it is about time, setting, mood, and who you are smoking with.
Morning Cigars vs Evening Cigars: How to Choose the Right Cigar — Your palate behaves differently at different times of day. This is how to use that knowledge.
Choosing the Right Cigar: Social Occasions — How to match a cigar to shared moments with people who may not smoke regularly.
How to Choose a Cigar as a Gift — How to choose a cigar for someone else without guessing.
How to Choose Wedding Cigars That Your Guests Will Actually Enjoy — Selecting cigars for a mixed-experience group on a wedding day without guesswork.
Choosing the Right Cigar — Cigars for Your Wedding — The cigar side of the biggest celebration of your life.
How to Choose the Perfect Cigar for a Bachelor Party — The specific considerations that make a bachelor party selection work for everyone.
The 10 Best Cigars for Groomsmen: Reviewed and Ready to Light — Ten personally reviewed cigars for a mixed-experience group on a wedding day.
Choosing the Right Cigar When Golfing — Why wind, walking pace, and round length all affect which cigar belongs on the course.
Choosing the Right Cigar for Your Vacation — How to build the right travel selection for different vacation settings.
Choosing the Right Cigar for Your Vacation: The Complete Guide — The full framework for pairing cigars to specific vacation environments and activities.
The Perfect Cigars for Your Fishing Trip — Outdoor conditions, smoke time, and the patience of a fishing session all affect which cigar belongs in your pocket.
Choosing the Right Cigar for a Walk — Shorter smoke times, open air, and movement: what to look for.
Cigar Storage: Humidors, Humidity and Long-Term Care
Proper storage is not optional. A cigar stored poorly will not smoke as intended, regardless of how much you paid for it.
How to Store Cigars: The Complete Humidity Guide for Your Humidor — The foundational storage guide. Covers correct humidity range, how to maintain stability, and how to fix problems.
The Right Temperature for Storing Cigars: Your Complete Humidor Guide — Temperature matters as much as humidity and gets far less attention.
Why Your Hygrometer Might Be Lying to You — And How to Fix It — An inaccurate hygrometer is the most common hidden cause of storage problems. The salt test calibration method, step by step.
How to Season a Humidor — The step most new humidor owners skip. Why so many cigars dry out in the first weeks.
What Cigars Actually Need to Stay in Perfect Condition — A complete overview of every environmental factor that affects stored tobacco.
Best Humidity Control for Cigar Humidors: Complete Beginner’s Guide — Boveda packs, gel jars, electronic systems — compared clearly.
Making a Cheap Homemade Humidor — A properly built tupperdor outperforms most cheap desktop humidors.
How to Store Cigars Without a Humidor — Short-term solutions before you have proper storage.
Can You Store Cigars in the Fridge? — No. Here is exactly why, and what the fridge actually does to tobacco.
Should You Age Your Cigars? Here’s the Honest Answer — When aging genuinely improves a cigar and when it does not.
Cigar Mold vs Plume: The Complete Guide to Telling Them Apart — White spots on your cigars do not automatically mean disaster — but you need to know the difference. Includes a four-test identification system and a personal position on the plume debate based on direct aging experience.
Tobacco Beetles in Cigars: Complete Prevention Guide — How to identify, prevent, and respond to infestation before it destroys your collection.
How to Rehydrate a Cigar: The Complete Recovery Guide — Dried-out cigars can often be restored. The correct process, done patiently.
Troubleshooting: When Things Go Wrong
Every cigar smoker encounters problems. Knowing what went wrong and why turns frustration into a learning moment.
Why Does My Cigar Taste Bitter? 8 Causes and How to Fix Each One — Bitterness always has a specific cause. All eight covered with specific fixes.
Why Won’t My Cigar Stay Lit? — All the reasons a cigar keeps dying and how to fix each one.
Why Does My Cigar Burn Unevenly? — Canoeing, tunneling, crooked burns. What causes each and when correction is possible.
How to Fix a Tight or Plugged Cigar: Rescue Your Smoke Mid-Session — A plugged draw does not have to end the session. The recovery techniques that actually work.
Why Does My Cigar Wrapper Crack? Causes, Prevention, and Fixes — Wrapper cracks are almost always storage-related. Understanding why they happen prevents them.
Can You Relight a Cigar? — Yes — with conditions. The factors that determine whether a relight gives you a good smoke or a compromised one.
Pairing: Cigars with Coffee, Whiskey and Spirits
A well-matched pairing elevates both the cigar and the drink. These guides are built from actual pairing experience, not theory.
How to Pair Cigars with Coffee: A Complete Beginner’s Guide — Coffee is one of the best everyday pairings for cigars. A clear framework for matching body to body.
Cigar and Coffee Pairing: How This Classic Pair Works According to Your Brain — The neurological and sensory mechanisms behind why coffee and cigars pair as naturally as they do.
10 Cigars That Pair Perfectly with Coffee — Ten specific cigars with coffee pairing recommendations drawn from direct tasting.
How to Pair Cigars with Whiskey: Beginner’s Guide — Pairing principles with specific recommendations across bourbon, scotch, and rye.
5 Cigars That Pair Well with Fruity Whiskeys and Why — Five specific pairings explained through the flavor bridges that make them work.
Why Cigars and Spirits Are a Perfect Pairing — According to Your Brain — The neuroscience behind why cigars and spirits reinforce each other at the sensory level.
The Science and Psychology of Cigars
Cigars interact with your senses, brain, and body in specific ways that reward understanding.
What Parts of the Brain Do Cigars Stimulate? — Within seconds of a first draw, nicotine triggers a chain reaction across multiple brain regions. This is what actually happens.
Sex and Cigars Trigger the Same Parts of Your Brain — Why the pleasure from a premium cigar is neurologically similar to other peak experiences — and what that tells us about why the ritual matters.
Cigars vs Cigarettes: What’s the Difference? — The actual physiological, chemical, and experiential differences between two tobacco products that share a name but almost nothing else.
Brand Deep-Dives: Complete Guides to Key Brands
Some brands deserve more than a single review. These are the most thoroughly covered brands on VDG Cigars, with multiple reviews, original interviews, and direct brand access consolidated in one place.
El Septimo Cigars: The Complete Guide — Reviews, Interviews & the Story Behind the Brand — A Swiss-founded luxury brand with tobacco grown without pesticides, fermented for 12 months, and aged 5–15 years. Nine reviews and two direct interviews with founder Zaya Younan. Everything in one place.
Escobar Cigars: The Complete Guide — Reviews, Interviews & Everything You Need to Know — Founded in 2018 and associated with rapper Nas, Escobar Cigars has built a serious following. The real story, the driving forces, and everything reviewed on VDG Cigars.
Exclusive Interviews: Brand Founders and Industry Figures
These interviews are original, unsponsored, and produced from real access to the people who make and distribute premium cigars. None of this content exists anywhere else.
El Septimo: An Interview with Zaya Younan on Taste, Emotion and the Architecture of Flavor — Zaya Younan on the philosophy behind El Septimo, why the tobacco is produced the way it is, and what a premium cigar should deliver.
The Story of Zaya Younan and El Septimo: A Living Proof That Anything Is Possible — The full origin story. One of the most extraordinary journeys in the premium cigar world.
Tony Barrios from Stallone Cigars: A Bird Should Not Be Kept in a Cage — Stallone Cigars founder on starting in Venezuela, moving production to Nicaragua, and building a brand that now reaches 17 countries.
Escobar Cigars: Two Markets, One Brand, Zero Compromises — Brand Ambassador Takizala Kahuit on navigating strict European regulations and building international presence without traditional advertising.
Escobar Cigars David: White Sharks, a Passion and a Homeless Dog — The Escobar Cigars origin story through co-founder David Gomez: from freediving in California to building a cigar brand in Nicaragua.
Jon Huber from Crowned Heads Cigars: The Man Behind the Brand — Jon Huber on building one of the most respected boutique brands in the world and his philosophy on what makes a cigar worth making.
Stefan Lampert: The History of Lampert Cigars — A Family Dating Back to 1418 — A coat of arms from the kingdom, a family history going back to 1418, and a brand born from a stormy vacation in Thailand.
Stefan Lampert: Ocean Breeze Makes Me Think of Vacation — A continuation of the Lampert story and the brand’s vision.
Hemmy Garcia from Hemmys Cigars: A Pace and Energy That Must Be Experienced to Understand — Cuban roots, German base, a rum created for his own cigars, and a personality that makes the industry feel alive.
Vincent from Vicente Blends: I’m Old School My Friend — Am Quick and Get Shit Done — A brand owner who answers interview requests the same day and builds cigar boxes with 13 layers of lacquer.
Maik Neubauer from Stauffenberg Cigars: In Honor of the Heroes Who Sacrificed Their Lives — A premium cigar brand built as a tribute to the German resistance fighters of World War II.
Daniel, Founder of Cigarrspecialisten: Pride in Our Service Are His Keywords — Sweden’s leading online cigar retailer and the passion behind it.
Swecigars: Premium Cigar Distribution in Sweden Explained — The world most people never see: import regulations, certification costs, and marketing laws so strict you cannot even tell people how good the product is.
Cigar Ratings: Our Review Archive
Every cigar reviewed on VDG Cigars is evaluated using a consistent methodology: construction, cold draw, first third, second third, final third, retrohale, texture, and price-to-quality verdict. No star systems. No affiliate pressure. No review written without the cigar in hand.
Browse the full ratings archive: vdg-cigars.com/category/cigar-ratings/
Standout cigars from the archive:
El Septimo Rebelde Blue — 98 points — Cigar of the Year 2025. Smooth, complex, and unlike anything else in the archive.
La Aurora ADN Dominicano Robusto — 94 points — Flawless construction and complexity from start to finish. One of the most engaging Dominican cigars reviewed on this site.
Drew Estate Blackened S81 Maduro Toro — 93 points — Incredibly smooth from first draw to nub. Chocolate, fruitiness, and nuts in a profile that stays interesting throughout.
Perdomo 30th Anniversary Connecticut Robusto — 90 points — A Connecticut that surprises with character and refinement well beyond what the wrapper suggests.
10 Cigars with 90+ Ratings Worth Trying — A curated shortlist of standout rated cigars from the archive across brands, origins, and price points.
Top Lists and Curated Recommendations
Every cigar on these lists has been smoked and evaluated personally. Not compiled from other websites.
Top 20 Cigars of 2025 — The twenty best cigars smoked across the entire year.
Cigar of the Year 2025: El Septimo Rebelde Blue — The single cigar that stood above all others smoked in 2025.
Best 15 Robusto Cigars — The fifteen best robustos in the review archive, with full flavor profiles, construction notes, and smoke times.
Top 16 Maduro Cigars of 2025 — The best dark-wrapped cigars across the full body range.
Top 15 Complex Cigars of 2025 — The most layered, evolving, and intellectually demanding cigars reviewed in 2025.
Top 13 Connecticut Cigars of 2025 — The best Connecticut-wrapper cigars from light morning smokes to more nuanced afternoon choices.
10 Complex Cigars That Reward Your Attention — Cigars that keep changing on you from first third to last.
10 Cigars We Feel Are Cheap Compared to What They Deliver — Where price-to-quality ratio is genuinely exceptional.
15 Best Cigars Under $10 — Quality at the budget end of the market, reviewed honestly.
Best 15 Premium Cigars Under $15 — The mid-budget tier where the best everyday smokes live.
Best 30 Cigars for Beginners (2026) — The definitive starting list for anyone new to premium cigars.
The 10 Best Cigars for Groomsmen — Quality, smoking time, and value balanced for a mixed group on a wedding day.
10 Cigars That Pair Perfectly with Coffee — Specific pairing recommendations drawn from direct tasting experience.
5 Mild Bodied Cigars Worth Trying · 5 Medium Bodied Cigars Worth Trying · 5 Full Bodied Cigars Worth Trying
Cigar Lifestyle and Occasions
Can You Bring Cigars on a Plane? Complete TSA Guide for US Travelers — Rules, limits, carry-on vs checked baggage, and how to travel with cigars without losing them at security.
Can You Bring Cigars on a Plane in Europe? Complete Guide for EU Travelers — The EU-specific rules for flying with premium cigars.
Your Complete Guide to Ordering Premium Cigars Across European Borders (2026) — The practical reality of buying and shipping cigars across Europe’s varying regulatory environments.
How to Remove Cigar Smell From Clothes? — The methods that actually work against embedded tobacco smoke in fabric.
How to Remove Cigar Smell From Your House: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide — Room by room, material by material.
Frequently Asked Questions
Start with something mild to medium-bodied with a Connecticut or smooth Habano wrapper. The top 30 beginner cigars are all personally reviewed and selected specifically for new smokers. The Perdomo 30th Anniversary Connecticut, Aladino Connecticut Rothschild, and Escobar Connecticut Robusto are three that come up consistently for their smoothness, accessibility, and quality construction.
Short term — up to two weeks — a sealed zip-lock bag with a Boveda 69% humidity pack works well. For anything longer you need a proper humidor or a tupperdor. A tupperdor is simply an airtight plastic container with a Boveda pack inside. It costs under $20 and outperforms many cheap desktop humidors. The full guide is here: how to store cigars without a humidor.
65–72% relative humidity, with 68–70% being the most commonly recommended range. Stability matters more than hitting an exact number — a steady 67% is better than humidity that swings between 62% and 75%. Temperature should stay between 18°C and 21°C (65–70°F). Full details in the complete humidity guide.
Bitterness has a specific cause almost every time. The most common are smoking too fast, relighting a cold cigar incorrectly, over-humidified tobacco, or a tar build-up in the last third. The full breakdown of all eight causes and their fixes is here: why does my cigar taste bitter.
Body refers to the intensity and density of the smoke on your palate — how much it fills your mouth. Strength refers to the nicotine content and how it affects you physically. A cigar can be full-bodied with moderate strength, or mild-bodied with surprisingly high strength. Most beginners confuse the two. The full explanation is here: body vs strength in a cigar.
Mold is blue-green or dark, has an irregular spreading pattern, smells musty, and leaves a stain if you wipe it. Plume is white, powdery, evenly distributed, odorless, and brushes off cleanly without marking the wrapper. Plume is rare and harmless — most white spots are mold. The complete four-test identification system is here: cigar mold vs plume.
Draw smoke into your mouth as normal, then instead of exhaling through your mouth, close your lips and push the smoke gently out through your nose. It takes practice. The first few times will feel uncomfortable. Done correctly it unlocks an entirely different layer of flavor — particularly spice, floral notes, and cedar — that you cannot detect through the mouth alone. Full technique guide here: how to retrohale a cigar.
Yes, with conditions. If the cigar has been out for less than an hour and was stored properly, knock off the ash, purge stale smoke by blowing gently through the foot, then relight with a soft flame while rotating. If it has been out for several hours or overnight, the experience will be noticeably harsher but still smokeable. Full guidance here: can you relight a cigar.
For a genuine premium handmade cigar, $8–15 is where quality starts reliably appearing. Below that you are usually dealing with short filler, machine-made construction, or lower-grade tobacco. The $15–25 range is where complexity, aging, and single-origin tobaccos start to make a real difference. Above $25 you are paying for premium leaf, long aging, and brand prestige — sometimes worth it, sometimes not. Full breakdown here: how much does a cigar cost.
It depends on the size. A Petit Corona (4–4.5 inches) takes around 30–45 minutes. A Robusto (5 inches, 50 ring gauge) typically runs 45–60 minutes. A Toro or Churchill can take 75–90 minutes at a relaxed pace. Smoking faster than the format is designed for raises the temperature, concentrates tar, and produces bitterness. If you are short on time, choose a smaller vitola rather than rushing a larger one. Size and format details covered here: cigar sizes explained.
All three are among the most popular formats in premium cigars, but they differ meaningfully. A Robusto is typically 5 x 50 — compact, with a higher wrapper-to-filler ratio that delivers concentrated flavor in under an hour. A Toro runs 6 x 52, giving more smoke development time and a slightly cooler draw. A Churchill is the longest of the three at 7 x 47–48, traditionally associated with longer, more contemplative sessions. The full comparison is here: Robusto vs Toro vs Churchill vs Corona.
Full-bodied cigars with dark wrappers — Maduros, Oscuro, and heavy Habanos — pair well with peated Scotch and high-rye bourbons. The smoke and sweetness of the tobacco meets the smoke and oak of the spirit without either overwhelming the other. For lighter whiskeys, a medium-bodied Connecticut or a Corojo-wrapped cigar with cedar and spice notes works better. The full framework is here: how to pair cigars with whiskey.
A Final Word
A premium cigar is not expensive given what it is. The tobacco was grown over years, fermented for months, aged until the oils and sugars settled into something worth tasting, then rolled by hands that took years to learn the craft. The wrapper alone — that single leaf wrapped around the outside — can account for the majority of what you taste.
Most people who try their first premium cigar and don’t connect with it haven’t had the wrong cigar. They’ve had the wrong information going in. They smoked it too fast, didn’t know what to look for, chose something too strong, or stored it badly. The cigar was doing its job. The experience wasn’t set up to receive it.
That is what this site is for. Not to sell you something. Not to rank brands someone paid to be included. To give you the knowledge that makes a premium cigar worth what it costs — which, given everything that went into making it, is usually less than it should be.
Read more about who I am and why I built VDG Cigars.
Subscribe to our newsletter and find out about all new posts
Check out our latest posts
- What Is a Connecticut Cigar? The Wrapper Explained
A Connecticut cigar is named after its wrapper. Not the country it was made in, not the filler inside it. The tobacco in the middle… Read more: What Is a Connecticut Cigar? The Wrapper Explained - How a Cigar Is Made, From Seed to Shop
The cigar in your hand took longer to make than most people think, and almost none of that time was spent rolling it. Rolling is… Read more: How a Cigar Is Made, From Seed to Shop - Top 30 Best Winter Cigars (2026): Reviewed by Flavor, Body and Smoke Time
Winter changes the whole cigar. The evenings start at four. The smoking chair moves closer to the fire, or the cigar moves out to the… Read more: Top 30 Best Winter Cigars (2026): Reviewed by Flavor, Body and Smoke Time - Cigar Ring Gauge in mm: Every Size, and What Thickness Actually Changes
Ring gauge is how thick a cigar is. The second number in a 5 x 50 is the ring gauge, and it counts in sixty… Read more: Cigar Ring Gauge in mm: Every Size, and What Thickness Actually Changes - Horacio 8 Classic Review: A Small, Nutty Costa Rican Everyday Smoke
The Horacio 8 is a short, medium-bodied cigar that packs plenty of flavor into a compact format. Over 50 minutes it works through sweet almond… Read more: Horacio 8 Classic Review: A Small, Nutty Costa Rican Everyday Smoke - Karina Owen: The Woman Who Built Her Own Name (Part 3 of 3)
Something personal before any of this begins. I have been working on Karina Owen’s story for a few months now. Sitting here writing the last… Read more: Karina Owen: The Woman Who Built Her Own Name (Part 3 of 3) - Horacio Heritage 6 Review: A Full-Bodied Costa Rican With a Perfumed Floral Edge
The Horacio Heritage 6 is a short, full-bodied cigar with an unusual, perfume-like floral character that sets it apart. Over 45 minutes it works through… Read more: Horacio Heritage 6 Review: A Full-Bodied Costa Rican With a Perfumed Floral Edge - Karina Owen: The Years That Taught Her People (Part 2 of 3)
Part 1 of this interview ended with a door Karina Owen left unlocked. She had changed her degree, kept her credits, and told herself that… Read more: Karina Owen: The Years That Taught Her People (Part 2 of 3)
