The bold and memorable flavors that are enjoyed when smoking a cigar are thanks to high-quality tobacco leaves and aging process. Through proper storage and an understanding of aging cigars, you can ensure that flavor is one of the most enjoyable parts of your cigars. At Oliva Cigars, we age our cigars to perfection to ensure that you enjoy each and every moment of the cigar in your hand. Check out today’s blog post for a few of the factors that go into aging a cigar perfectly as well as a few facts that are associated with the aging of cigars.
Why Do We Age Cigars
There are so many different ways to enjoy tobacco, but cigars like to focus on the tobacco leaves and their natural flavor. Rather than add artificial flavors to the tobacco leaves, we age them to perfection to provide you with a bold cigar taste that you’ll love. The aging process is what provides the complex flavors that luxury cigars are known for and what many people look forward to the most.
To create these unique and noticeable flavors, tobacco leaves must be aged properly. More often than not, the amount of aging that a cigar goes through will speak to your preference. For some, a fresh, young cigar is going to be plenty of flavor to enjoy. For others, the longer a cigar is aged, the better. If you’re someone who enjoys a boldly flavored cigar, knowing that you can continue the aging process within your own home could be the good news you’ve been waiting for.
Though a majority of the aging process will happen with the leaves themselves, it doesn’t have to end there. Proper storage of your cigar for extended periods of time is another way for you to continue the aging process, but it needs to be done correctly.
Aging Cigars in Your Home
When wanting to age cigars in your home, there are a few things that you need to take into consideration. Though aging is known for bringing out complex flavors, there’s no way to turn a good cigar into a great cigar — regardless of how long you let it sit for. Keep reading to learn more about the things to consider before deciding to age a cigar.
Size
Larger, thick cigars use various cigar leaves to compose a high-quality cigar. This composition protects the interior of the cigar from the humidity and many other components of the outdoor areas. For that reason, they are one of the best cigars to choose to age within your home. The blend of the leaves age well with time and, because of the thickness, there is rarely an issue with too much moisture ruining the cigar. For that reason, do your best to avoid choosing thinner cigars for aging.
Storage
When it comes to aging, a significant part of the success that you have in maintaining and improving the flavor will come from the storage options that you have available. Humidors are the most common choice for storing cigars because they provide you with both the temperature and humidity maintenance that your cigars need to remain in prime condition. You can find all sorts of sizes that will provide you with what you need regarding storage but will vary so that you’re able to store as many, or as few, cigars as you’d like!
Time
As we’ve mentioned before, no amount of time is going to make a cheap cigar into a delicious one, regardless of how long you try to age it for. In fact, even quality cigars can be ruined with too much time. Regardless of the size of the cigar and the storage that you’re choosing to use, make sure to inform yourself on how long the leaves have been aged prior to doing this so that you have a good idea of how long you should try to age the cigars for.
How to Age Cigars Within Your Home
So, we’ve touched a little bit on what to anticipate before you start the aging process, but now we are going to cover what you need to do in order to start aging cigars in your home.
Step 1: Get Your Humidor Ready
Storage is a must for the aging process. There’s nothing too specific that you need when it comes to your humidor, but you do want to ensure that it’s ready for the aging process. If you aren’t currently using your humidor and need to find it, or you don’t own a humidor, make sure that you get this initial step taken care of so that you are prepared for what’s to follow.
Step 2: Purchase Cigars
Once you’ve got your storage option taken care of, it’s time to purchase your cigars. We suggest buying anywhere from 20 to 25 cigars. Depending on how long you’d like to age your cigars, the first cigars that you purchase will differ. Finding a brand that you know is high-quality is a must, but the cigars that you choose will vary depending on if you’re planning on spending months versus years on this aging process.
Step 3: Try the Cigars
This next step is going to help you determine the change that happens when you’ve completed the aging process. Take two of the cigars from the box that you’ve purchased and light them up. Take a few puffs from the cigar so that you can acknowledge what the original taste of the cigar is and make notes of it.
Once you’ve done this, place your cigars into the humidor and don’t smoke them for at least six more weeks. After six weeks have passed, take the two test cigars and enjoy a few more puffs from the cigars. This will help you recognize the amount of change that is happening in this time and will make it so much easier for you to determine when you’ve hit the ideal level of aging.
Continue to do this until your cigars have aged to your desired flavor. One thing that you should take note of is that the first six week period is going to show less change than those that follow, so be patient with the process. You may also want to consider altering the temperature and humidity levels to see how that affects your aging results, so long as they’re within the suggested temperatures and levels for cigar storage.
Step 4: Enjoy the Cigars
After months or years of letting the cigars age, it’s time to enjoy them. Take some time to share these with a close friend or family member and enjoy the aging process that you’ve spent time perfecting. When you’ve done it with a luxury, hand-rolled cigar, you know that it’s going to be a cigar worth sharing.
FAQ About Aging Cigars
Because it is so easy to age cigars in the house, people are always willing to take at least a couple of cigars and try to age them on their own. While it is a pretty straightforward process, there are a lot of things that come with the first few times of aging a cigar. Keep reading for a few of the most frequently asked questions surrounding aging cigars.
How long should you age cigars for?
Preference in flavor is going to be the main component that needs to be taken into consideration when determining how long you’d like to age your cigar. Countless cigar experts will tell you that as little as a month can provide your cigar with the extra time that it needs to reach the next level of aroma and flavor.
If you’re capable of waiting longer than a month or two, it’s good to know that you can age your cigars for up to 10 years before really worrying about if they’ll go bad or not. If you’re patient enough to wait that long, it’s definitely worth giving it a year or more to see just how your hand-rolled cigars will develop.
What type of cigars will age best?
We talked about it a little earlier on in our blog post, but the type of cigar that you choose will change the way that the aging affects the cigar. In regards to size, it’s better to select cigars that are on the thicker side because of the depth that their composition and flavor has right off the bat. These cigars are less likely to be affected by humidity levels.
Moreover, thick, hand-rolled cigars have proven to develop more and more flavor over the years. This is only the case when you’ve ensured that the temperature and humidity levels are exactly where they need to be throughout the aging process.
Though thick cigars are better for that aging process, they certainly aren’t the only ones that will improve with age. Most luxury cigars will only improve with time, but make sure that you look into the tobacco leaves that are being used to ensure they age well.
How does humidity affect aging?
Storing your cigars in the right temperature is going to affect the way that your cigars age. The piece to take note of is that varying levels of humidity will provide you with varying flavors and aromas. You should not store your cigars in any higher than 70 percent humidity, but altering the levels of humidity throughout the aging process can lead to a different result. You should always make sure that your cigars are stored anywhere from 62 to 70 degrees, but altering the humidity levels will only provide you with an alternative result than maintaining it for the entirety of the process.
How will a previously aged cigar change?
Many of the luxury cigars that people purchase for significant events or for gifts have been aged prior. With Oliva cigars, we work to ensure that each of the cigars we sell has been aged to a perfect flavor. That being said, choosing to age a cigar that has already been aged will yield less noticeable results than cigars that are younger.
Depending on how much time you’re wanting to spend aging your cigars, purchasing a previously aged cigar can make it so that you don’t have to spend as much time aging. In the case that you want to spend some additional time perfecting the aging process, then it would be better to select a young cigar with little aging done prior. In doing so, you get the chance to enjoy a cigar that you’ve had the opportunity of aging yourself.
Try an Oliva Cigar
Whether you’re looking for a cigar that has already been aged to perfection or you want to try adding a few months time to a luxury cigar to see how it will differ, Oliva cigars are a fantastic option. You can find our brand in various locations, so make sure to check for the areas that offer Oliva cigars in your area. Our premium, hand-rolled cigars are perfect for celebrations, gifts, and the like — find the perfect Oliva cigar for everything you need.