A few weeks ago, I discovered a new way to enjoy my favorite tobaccos when I took a chance and rolled a cigarette from a cherished pipe blend. Now I am proud to report back to you with a new dimension to my homemade cigarillo hobby: the rolling machine.

I have been smoking these homemade sticks almost exclusively over these last few weeks and I’ve been loving it. I’ve got a pretty good rolling techinque down now, but there’s always some variation in the 100% handmade products. It’s quaint, I suppose, but there’s a part of me that wants to be assured of a perfect smoke every time. Today I made a foray over to a gas station I knew sold RYO materials and picked up a $3.00 rolling machine like the one pictured in the video below (an RYO how-to). I just rolled a smoke with it and I have to say, it’s already been worth every penny (and then some – the thing was cheap!).

On my first try, I got a tightly rolled, perfectly shaped, even-ended cigarette. It was truly a thing of beauty, and it smoked like a dream. I have to say, I’m proud I know how to roll a cigarette by hand, and I wouldn’t have felt right doing it by machine without having perfected my no-frills technique first, but nothing beats quality control and you just can’t always get a perfect roll by hand.

I highly recommend this way to enjoy your tobacco. It’s economical, travels well, and you can try an endless variety of tobaccos in the elegant, time-friendly cigarillo format. What’s not to love?

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. School has gotten in the way of writing for some time. However, I’ve just made a wonderful discovery and I thought this was the perfect forum for sharing it.

I begin with this question: what is the ultimate selling point for cigarillos? The best small cigars are both flavorful and quick, offering taste for the time-pressed smoker. The problem, however, is that there are precious few offerings which truly satisfy the palate of someone who’s used to the rich depth of full-sized cigars or pipe tobacco. What is more, those which are available have a small following (though it is growing) and are sold in a relatively small number of premium tobacconists’ shops. What, then, is the aficionado on the go to do when he runs out of his favorite cigarillos while traveling abroad or when he can’t get to the tobacco shop before closing time?

Why, roll his own, of course! After a bit of hesitation (cigarettes have never really appealed to me) I decided to try solving this problem by rolling a sort of homemade cigarillo with one of my favorite pipe tobaccos. I picked up a pack of rolling papers for $2.00 at a gas station and rushed home to try out my purchase. I filled the paper with a rich, hearty English blend and rolled it up. After one faulty product, I got what I thought would be a pretty good smoke: evenly filled, tight roll, lots of tobacco. I took it outside and lit up.

It was heaven. The moist tobacco burned slowly and well. It tasted of rich Latakia – just as good as filling a favorite pipe with the same blend – and lasted a good ten minutes or so. The flavor was excellent down to the nub and the cigarette met my time constraints easily (I don’t think I can rightly call it a cigarillo because it’s not tobacco-wrapped). I heartliy recommend this method to anyone who is looking for a quick, delicious smoke on the go. Once you get over any initial reservations about smoking something wrapped in paper, I think you’ll find it a wonderful experience.

Israeli food and wine writer Daniel Rogov gives a great introduction to cigarillo production and the market in various countries in this essay.

The piece opens with an elegant description of cigarillo culture at the Paris opera:

I was still quite young when I realized that for two hundred years the intermission between the first and second acts at the Opera in Paris has been timed to last precisely nineteen minutes. That provides enough time to stroll from my opera box to the bar, to acquire glasses of Veuve Clicquot Champagne for my date and myself and to find a place to stand overlooking the grand staircase, there to ponder on the qualities of the Champagne, the opera, or the romantic history of the exquisite rococo building in which I was standing. If there was anything at all to destroy this otherwise perfect setting, it was the knowledge that the eight minutes remaining in the intermission did not offer enough time to enjoy the cigar I was carrying in the inner pocket of my smoking jacket.

Whatever I may have been as a young man, I was not completely obtuse, so it did not take long to realize that the solution of the most sophisticated cigar smokers during such occasions was to turn to a cigarillo, one of those small, thin elegant cigars meant largely for those who do not have the leisurely hour or so that a Churchill or a Double Corona requires. Today, more than half of all European cigar smokers carry a cigar case in their right hand jacket pocket and a small, elegant white box of cigarillos in their other inner pocket.

The author then goes on to describe the production of cigarillos and to highlight some of his favorites. As the title of this post states, a great introduction to the world of small cigars and well-written, too.

A couple of my favorite articles on cigarillos come from past issues of Cigar Aficionado. Though the publication rarely devotes many column inches to small cigars, these pieces – spaced ten years apart – give a sense of where the small cigar market was in 1994 (the owners of the Danneman brand hoped at the time that it would be up-and-coming) and a decade later in 2004 (when the explosion of cigarillos had just begun). Check them out.