If you would use a punch on the cigar and first test the draw, could you not then cover the punched hole with your thumb while lighting? Wouldn't that have the same result as lighting an uncut cigar, but also solve the pesky "Will it draw" worry? Just a thought. :-)
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I can't help thinking you must look a little goofy waving your cigar around at a herf. Do you do it gently like a lighter during Free Bird, or is it more the Pete Townshend windmill style? :-)
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I've never tried this, so have no valid input plus or minus. Yet it does remind me a bit of wine tasters, who swirl their swill around, smacking lips like a landed carp, then spitting out the dross.

Hey, do you think cigars may taste best if you never light them at all?
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I've tried it and didn't notice much of a difference.
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Just think about the price per puff it could finally make davidoffs affordable :-)
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If looking cool at herf's is what's it about, then I have been doing it wrong. :-)


Much of a difference in what regards?
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Some people claim that if they pre-cut and then place their thumb over the cut end, it has the same effect. I personally have tried this, but it doesn't quite taste the same to me.
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I'm very doubtful that the quantity of unburned fuel residue that could possibly pass a charred foot could ever be detectable/identifiable in a cigar's flavor, to begin with. If you are using a quality flame, the amount of this material is miniscule in the first place. Secondly, if you aren't drawing on the cigar as you light it, the described temperature differential is the only competitor against the dense pack of tobacco in the challenge of keeping that residue out of the length of the cigar. Do you ever notice how you don't get smoke drifting from the head until you draw on it?

I consider myself to have a pretty subtle tongue and I just can't imagine how any flavor some are believing to be this product possibly can be. Unless you are using an extremely poor execution of the better conventional lighting methods (say, lighting your cigar with a burning newspaper), there is simply too little fuel char and too much variance from stick to stick, let alone from smoking experience to smoking experience (ambient temperature, wind, what you had for lunch) for this kind of distinction to be notable.

This is just my opinion and my experience, though. If someone can make a convincing case to me, I'd love to hear it.
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Sometime I do this by accident!!! I light the cigar and forget to cut it, than after I cut it I have to purge it because the thing was lit and... oh you get the picture!!!:-)
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Are you one of those guys who sometimes sticks the lit end in your mouth, too? :-) :-)
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Thanks for the well thought out reply. Have you tried this method?
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No, and I certainly will. Maybe I'll light two of the same stick right after each other (one conventionally and one this way) and then try two more of the same stick the next day, with the order reversed.

One of my favorite things about being a cigar nerd is that I get to mess around with all this stuff, skeptic or not.
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It happens!!!:-)
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Much of a different taste in the smoke. I toast my cigars and don't draw on them to light them though so not a lot of "acrid" smoke flows through the stick. Supposedly this method makes the first couple draws less harsh but I didn't notice it much when I did it.
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