How to Find a Good Cigar Online

Looking for a good cigar? It’s a lot easier when you can browse around a cigar store and get all touchy-feely with them. But what about buying cigars online? There’s a lot of space between you and those cigars. So how do you pick a winner?

Let’s assume you’re a relatively new cigar smoker; that you’ve got a little experience under your belt (probably because like most cigar smokers, you bought your first cigars in an actual brick and mortar? store). Now you’re buying cigars online, and the selection is so massive you don’t know where to start.

You could start with the wrapper you like. Perhaps you like the mildness of a Connecticut leaf, or the sweetness of an African Cameroon, or the spiciness of a Brazilian Mata Fina. One advantage of buying cigars from an online cigar store is that you can search for the wrapper you like or a wrapper you’d like to try.

Another way to find a good cigar from an online cigar store is to go with a name brand like Arturo Fuente, Padron, or Macanudo, for example. They all have excellent reps. But one of the other advantages of buying cigars online is the number of excellent house brands that are available. Many of these cigars are produced by the same tabacaleras that make the name brand cigars, yet cost a lot less, and more often than not offer the same high quality. In fact, one of the reasons most cigar smokers buy their cigars online is because the prices in general are much lower.

Additionally, there’s nothing like a good recommendation from a trusted source for finding good cigars. Since there’s no salesperson, per se, to help you choose a good cigar, perhaps the best way to see if what you’re buying is up to snuff (you’ll excuse the expression),
is to read cigar reviews. There are a number of highly experienced cigar reviewers who blog cigar reviews on a daily basis. Most of them are not beholden to a specific brand or online cigar retailer, so you almost always get an honest, unbiased opinion.

However, there are some online cigar stores that offer customer reviews. In some ways these are even better, because they come from “regular Joe’s” who have more in common with the average cigar smoker than the professional reviewers. An online cigar store that features not only positive but negative reviews as well, says a lot about the integrity of that retailer.

So, like any other hobby or lifestyle activity that you’re interested in, the best way to find good cigars online is to educate yourself. Read about cigars you’ve tried, as well as the cigars you want to try.

And finally, shop smart. Start with a 5-pack first. Better yet, look for a good deal. Many cigars on sale come with free offers, usually other cigars, which is a great way to try new cigars without spending any extra cash.