You sit down in your favorite chair with a whiskey in one hand and your premium cigar in the other. It’s been a long day and you’re ready to light your stick and settle in for a night of relaxation. The cigar lights and the smell of its smoke fill the room.
You inhale a large draw, ready to feel the warm smoke and …nothing. There’s nothing more disappointing than paying good money for a cigar and having a hard draw (aka tight draw or bad draw). Smoking a cigar should be an enjoyable experience and not like trying to suck in the ice cream from a milkshake.
Don’t fear, there are reasons for a hard draw and we’re here to help you fix it, so you get that night of relaxation you deserve.
Keep Your Premium Cigar in Correct Humidity
If you store cigars in your home, you probably have a humidor to keep them fresh until you use them. The last thing you want to do is place the cigars in the humidor and never check on it again. When a cigar is over-humidified, then it results in a tight draw.
Try to keep your humidifier below 70 percent to keep them fresh or else you could get a tight draw. Moist cigars don’t draw smoke easily, so take it out of the humidifier overnight and let it dry out a little. This should help the hard draw.
Light Your Cigar Correctly
A plugged cigar is frustrating and disappointing, but sometimes the fault isn’t the cigars. For beginners, it is difficult to light a cigar properly each time. Every now and then even the experts get it wrong. If you experience a bad draw, then you may have lit the cigar incorrectly.
If it’s not burning evenly, then it could cause a bad draw. Keep the cigar near the flame, but not in it, and rotate the tip, so it gets even heating. When you take the first puff, the end should burn brightly and even.
If it doesn’t, then relight the flame because the burn isn’t even. Don’t use candles or anything that might change the taste of the cigar.
Gently Squeeze to Test Firmness
If a cigar is rolled or over-filled, then it may cause a plugged cigar. You won’t find this common with premium hand-rolled cigars, so it’s more likely to happen with machine-rolled cigars. When shipping the cigars, occasionally they expand and contract, which can impact the quality of the draw.
When purchasing the cigars, roll them in your hand and gently squeeze. A good cigar has consistent firmness from beginning to end. If you find hard spots, then it’s not packed well and could lead to a tight or bad draw.
If it’s too late and you’ve already bought it, then use a cigar piercer to put a few holes in the cigar and hope it clears up the draw problem.
Try and Recut the Premium Cigar
Sometimes we all get in a little hurry to smoke our cigars and make an imperfect cut. If you don’t cut off enough of the head, then it's hard to draw the smoke out. It’s easy to do when you’ve monster sticks like a torpedo or a tapered head figurado.
A V-cut or a punch cut creates restricted draws naturally. If you cut the cigar and it doesn’t draw well, then grab a straight cutter and take a little off the head. You don’t want to cut too much off, but if you can draw good smoke, then what’s the point.
Don’t Moisturize the Tip of Your Cigar
People try to imitate the moves and television when smoking cigars and it rarely turns out good for anyone. Too many characters wet the end of the cigar, saturating it with saliva. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it can plug up your cigar.
Punch and V-cuts on a torpedo cigar lead to a plugged cigar because the opening is smaller. Your saliva easily obstructs the flow and creates a bad draw.
If you got the head too wet, then just cut it a little more.
Don’t Chew Your Cigar
A cigar is meant to be smoked and not chewed. Many people don’t just put the cigar in their mouth and take a draw but grab it with their teeth. If your cigar starts with a good draw, but that changes as time goes on, then you’re probably chewing it.
For many, it’s just a habit and they may not even know they’re doing it. Chewing the cigar creates blockages and mangles the end of the cigar. If you smoke and end up with pieces of tobacco in your mouth, then you’re chewing your cigar and creating the hard draw.
In addition to creating a hard draw, it’s not good cigar etiquette either.
Unplug Your Cigar by Rolling It
We talked earlier about rolling the cigar in your hands and gently squeezing it to check the firmness. If you have a cigar with a tight draw, try rolling it in your fingers and gently squeezing it to unblock the cigar.
Roll it around a few times and then try again. It’s important to gently squeeze the cigar, but not too much. If you put on too much pressure, then it might make it worse or deform the cigar. It may not be a perfect solution, but it’s better than sucking on the cigar and getting nothing.
Don’t Suffer a Hard Draw Cigar
There’s nothing worse than getting a cigar with a hard draw. We look forward all day to sitting down with our favorite stick and taking that first long draw. When it doesn’t come it ruins the whole experience.
We hope you learned from our tips and when this happens, you’ll be prepared. Cigar.com has a wide selection of premium cigars for you to choose from. We also have all the accessories you could need from humidors to cutters.
Check out our cigar selection and enjoy the finest cigars available at the best prices.