12/20/2022
On Dec. 4th & 9th, the Princeton Cigar Society hosted Princeton students for a cigar lecture series, presented by Adrian, the to***conist at At Earths End.
Adrian talked about the history of the cigar industry as well as how ci**rs are made, and he spoke over an hour each day because we all had so many questions for him. He's an incredible to***conist, and there is plenty more material to learn from Adrian.
Feel free to correct me if I got something wrong, but here are some highlights of the many notes I took:
- Ci**rs have 3 main parts: wrapper, filler, and binder. The wrapper is a single leaf that surrounds the cigar (like a wrapper). The binder and filler make up the insides.
- 70% of the cigar flavor comes from the wrapper. The thicker a cigar is, the more "watered down" and diluted the flavor is, since there is more filler inside, which has less flavor. Skinnier ci**rs have more flavor since the wrapper makes up a higher percentage of the volume of the cigar.
- The leaf that cigar manufacturers use for the wrapper is from the top of the plant, which means it got the most sunlight. These are the most expensive leaves on a to***co plant.
- The color of a cigar has mostly to do with the amount of sunlight the to***co plant received but is also determined by how the wrapper is aged and dried.
- The leaves on the bottom of a to***co plant, which are usually stomped on, dirty, and gross, are usually sent to Big To***co companies to be used in ci******es. In other words, to***co leaves that are not good enough for ci**rs eventually become ci******es.
- The name of the cigar has nothing to do with its taste or flavor, and most names have a cool story behind them. For example, the popular Romeo & Juliet cigar got its name because the famous Shakespeare play was read aloud to the employees who made the ci**rs to entertain them during work.
**rs **rsociety
