How to Light a Cigar – Beginner’s Guide to Lighting Cigars

Properly lighting your cigar isn’t as simple as putting a flame up to it. There’s some technique involved in order to get your cigar lit the right way. There’s some easy-to-make mistakes among beginners, and even seasoned smokers. So, if you’re wondering how to light a cigar the right way, this post is just for you. In this tutorial, we’ll go over the different ways to light your cigar, how to avoid burning your cigar, and maintaining an even burn.

Selecting a Lighter

The first thing you need to do is decide on how you want to light your cigar. There are three ways to go about this, traditional lighters, matches, and cigar torch lighters.

Torch Lighters

Cigar torch lighters are the most popular option. Cigars are much thicker than cigarettes, so they require more heat to get lit. Torch lighters produce much more heat than regular Bic lighters, which allows you to light your cigar in a shorter amount of time and makes it easier to maintain an even burn.

Matches

Some people prefer to use matches over lighters. These are a bit more difficult to use as they don’t output as much heat. Not that they’re not hot, but the amount of time they stay lit is much less than a lighter with butane can. If you have plenty of matches, this won’t be an issue, but keep in mind that if your cigar starts burning unevenly and you need to add some heat, you’ll need extra matches.

Normal Lighters

Normal lighters usually aren’t the go-to for cigar smokers, but they get the job done and they’re much easier to find than a torch lighter if you don’t have one. These produce much less heat than a torch lighter, so they do take longer to light cigars.

How to Light the Cigar

One mistake many beginners make is putting the flame directly up to the cigar with a torch lighter. With a normal lighter, that’s okay. But with a torch, they produce a concentrated jet-like flame, and you can easily burn your cigar, and even accidentally light it on fire.

You don’t want to burn the cigar and ruin its flavor, so hold the torch so that the tip of the flame is about half an inch away from the cigar. Once you have the lighter going, rotate the cigar as you’re lighting it to get an even burn. 

Maintaining an Even Burn

Even though you may start off with an even burn, it’s likely that at some point you’ll experience a cigar that doesn’t burn evenly. Heat rises, so the top part of the cigar is naturally going to burn faster. To help prevent this uneven burn, slightly rotate the cigar about every minute or so.

If part of the cigar is already burning unevenly, hold the cigar so that the part that needs to burn quicker is facing up. If you’re getting to a point where you need to ash soon, then go ahead and take your lighter and add a little heat to get it even.

Find The Perfect Lighter with Cubano Central

Are you looking for a cigar lighter that you can rely on? Cubano Central offers a wide selection of cigar accessories, including cigar lighters, cigar cutters, and humidors. Browse our cigar accessories to find everything you may need for your cigar experiences.