Best Cigars for Extraction

[CAAB]

The thinking behind wanting to explore this path is that single leaf tobaccos that you can purchase are not quite the same as what a cigar is rolled with. A cigar has had it various tobaccos chosen and often fermented to have particular tastes.

I had a similar thought. For example, I read somewhere that Padron cigars involve multiple private farms, some owned by the Padron family. I doubt you'll find that on Leaf Only. Some of these cigars are very elaborate in terms of growing region.

The only problem is that the end goal for them is combustion, which will result in a different experience than vaping. Some of that stuff in there is just to help burning. Maybe a vape blend needs a higher ratio of wrapper and binder.

I had a thought though. It seems messy, but I am thinking next time I want to try a cigar extract, I will rip it apart and try to separate the wrapper, binder, filler, and create a separate extract from each one and then try to combine them later. Then I can bump up the ratio of wrapper and possibly completely removing components of the filler. for example.

Maybe that would be a good experiment. Take one whole cigar and put it in one extract, then compare it with the combined extracts of the different components of the same type of cigar.

Then possibly compare that with similar Leaf Only varietals that match the particular cigar profile.

[darwindesign]

Certain cigars are made with tobacco that is specific to their own, or very specific farmers. Outside of maybe a couple rare exceptions (Camaco and Macanudo come to mind) the farmer is not a good indicator of what the tobacco is. The leaf type and growing regions are going to provide the greatest influence on what the leaf tastes like. This gets further broken down with which priming the leaf came from, and how it was fermented. Just like their is significant quality differences in food, so exists the same with tobacco leaves. Your higher end companies tend to pick the best tasting leaves as their profit margins allow for such an expenditure. The topic of cigar leaves and production is vast enough that an individual wanting to get a working knowledge of it would need to do extensive research and smoking to get a good baseline. I fully understand why the recommend to not travel down this path.

As for the filler being chosen for purposes other than flavor this is not a thing outside of low quality cigars that are more "put whatever in a binder and wrap it up" and Acid cigars (they are purposely made with low flavor tobacco as that comes from their infusing process (spray perfume in a room full of cigars). Wrappers are special in that they have to be cosmetically flawless but they are almost always a primary flavor component. The binder likewise is given special consideration for structural integrity but also plays a significant portion of the flavor. As for the filler this can be true to a certain extent depending on what vitola but just to balance out the flavor so the blend is similar in various sizes. If you buy a big 60 ring gauge cigar it does not usually taste stronger than a 50 ring gauge. Obviously this can only be due to lighter flavored tobaccos being used to provide much of the extra bulk.

As for the Padron I wouldn't try something like a 1964. Most of what you pay for with that cigar is the expertise in rolling combined with aged tobaccos that are very refined with subtle notes that evolve as the cigar progresses. I highly doubt much if any of the most delicate notes are capable of being extracted and it would be a huge waste of money. I would suspect that if you took a Padron 4000 and extracted that it would be close to the same at a fifth of the cost.

[CAAB]

The topic of cigar leaves and production is vast enough that an individual wanting to get a working knowledge of it would need to do extensive research and smoking to get a good baseline.

That's the difficulty I've encountered so far. I'm more of a "go to the cigar shop and ask for a good cigar" type of person. But I feel like I haven't found the "aha" moment with vaping and naturally extracted cigars. It's not something you can just go to a cigar shop and ask about.

I've had to delve into the nitty gritty of cigar making to reverse engineer the process and develop something more suitable to vaping. It's possible that certain cigars and a certain extraction method might get close, I am still working on that personally. Granted I've only started seriously pursuing the subject and have 24 pending cigar extracts to sample. My earlier experiments were dead ends. PGA extraction method is no good in my opinion for cigars. And the H2O method I developed needs serious reworking for safety reasons.

It sounds like you have a good head start in terms of cigar knowledge though. I'll be interested to hear what you come up with.

As for the Padron I wouldn't try something like a 1964. Most of what you pay for with that cigar is the expertise in rolling combined with aged tobaccos that are very refined with subtle notes that evolve as the cigar progresses. I highly doubt much if any of the most delicate notes are capable of being extracted and it would be a huge waste of money. I would suspect that if you took a Padron 4000 and extracted that it would be close to the same at a fifth of the cost.

Too late, haha. I finished filtering the extract after a year in a jar of PG and another jar of VG/PGA. I am off vaping until December at least, so I have to wait to sample. Next I will try extracting Padron 4000.

As for the filler this can be true to a certain extent depending on what vitola but just to balance out the flavor so the blend is similar in various sizes. If you buy a big 60 ring gauge cigar it does not usually taste stronger than a 50 ring gauge.

That's an interesting thought. Perhaps the diameter of the cigar is an important factor in selecting for extraction purposes.

[darwindesign]

That's the difficulty I've encountered so far. I'm more of a "go to the cigar shop and ask for a good cigar" type of person. But I feel like I haven't found the "aha" moment with vaping and naturally extracted cigars. It's not something you can just go to a cigar shop and ask about.

I have not spent a lot of time in cigar shops but unless you happen to get really lucky with the person your talking to the "give me a good cigar" thing is more likely than not to give an overpriced or substandard result. You really have to name a flavor profile (or leaf blend) or a specific cigar and ask for similar offerings to get anywhere.

Have you posted notes on the cigars you have tried and what you got out of them anywhere?

[CAAB]

I have not spent a lot of time in cigar shops but unless you happen to get really lucky with the person your talking to the "give me a good cigar" thing is more likely than not to give an overpriced or substandard result. You really have to name a flavor profile (or leaf blend) or a specific cigar and ask for similar offerings to get anywhere.

I am fortunate in that I have a friend who is associated with the shop I go to and is a good reference. How have you explored cigars?

I don't yet have a plan going forward for which cigars to experiment with. The general idea is to explore a wide range of flavor profiles.

Have to posted notes on the cigars you have tried and what you got out of them anywhere?

I am waiting until possibly December when I can vape again to file a report here on my experiments. Half of my cigar type extracts are ready. The other half will be ready to process in December. At this juncture the only whole cigars I have extracted are "La Gloria Cubana" and "Padron 1964." The rest are single leaf varietals from Leaf Only. The idea being that the single leaf varietals will give me a basis of comparison for future cigar extracts.

For each cigar and single leaf varietal I am running a PG extraction and a separate VG/PGA extraction for comparison, so it will take some time to assess each one. It may be that some PG extracts will be better than VG/PGA extracts or vice versa. It may also be possible that it's more ideal to combine the PG and VG/PGA extracts.

[darwindesign]

How have you explored cigars?

Countless hours reading on a cigar forum to get started. I then read cigar reviews as I smoked them to understand how to translate what I was experiencing with how professional reviewers them. Once I found reviewers that had similar tastes than me then I could lean on to find good and bad choices. Eventually I smoked enough of them that by looking at the leaves and brand I had a fairly good idea of what something was going to be without reading reviews. By working out trades and purchases from other smokers online I was able to find out the effects of ageing before spending the time to do it myself. But more than anything it was just a matter of just smoking a very large variety over many years. This came at a high cost in time and money so it's not something i'm recommending to others.