That's where the FLAVOR is......

This is one of my favorite expressions to use in those special circumstances, kind of like Michael Scott likes to say "That's what she said".  When people talk about Chuck on a "What's in your smoker" thread on the internet, I always like to say "That's where the flavor is." because chuck is such a flavorful cut of meat.  Ground chuck is a flavorful ground meat, worth any extra cost.  Chuck Roast is about the most flavorful meat you can cook as a roast, and it makes a good choice as a smoked cut like a Boston Butt does.


But someone was asking how to properly cut a cigar today on my favorite cigar web forum, and someone there pointed them to a video...well, here, you can see it too, and I am sure the guy won't mind the visits to his site, 


http://cigarobsession.com/2011/03/10/how-to-cut-light-smoke-a-cigar/

Mind you, everything you see there is his own opinion and I do not know that person or have any thoughts one way or the other on what people might think about the video, I just add it there to show I am not making up this whole deal to hear myself talk.  (although I surely do love THAT.)  But he states that one should smoke very slowly and not heat up the cigar, which is excellent advice for more reasons than one.


Have you ever thought about where the flavor comes from in a cigar?  A lot of people think that the end is burning, and the taste of the cigar comes from what is burning at any one time.  And while that is at least 10% true, that is NOT where the flavor is.  The flavor in a cigar comes from the interaction of heat and smoke with un-burned tobacco.  Heat is a catalyst in almost any chemical reaction, and in a cigar, it is certainly a catalyst.  The heat, combined with the smoke created by the burning tobacco, gently spread throughout the entire un-burned bunch that makes up the cigar, caressing it, passing through it, picking up nuances and perfumed oils, vaporizing others. By the time the smoke that arose from the cherry end reaches your mouth, it is richly laden with molecules that were not part of the combustion process, and which are extremely flavorful to the senses.  There are flavors created by burning, but they are not the whole story, or even the main idea.  They provide the barest outline and basis for everything good that happens in the few short inches they travel to reach the smoker.


I made an analogy at the asylum that I liked a great deal that had to do with a gas pump.  When you pull up to the pump and dispense fuel, you are charged according to an inline flow meter inside the pump and before the hose.  The faster it turns, the faster the numbers go.  But when it is all said and done, due to a vacuum created in the system, you only get the gas that exits the nozzle, and you leave the gas that is trapped in the hose, which you PAID FOR.  Luckily, however, you DO get the gas the poor sucker BEFORE YOU paid for and did not get.  So it all works out.  How does this relate to a cigar?  It's simple.  When you puff on a cigar, you get a certain amount of smoke in your mouth.  But a large portion of the smoke created by the burn is still inside the cigar.  So when you puff, you are actually getting the smoke you created on the puff previously.  It has been sitting "in the hose" gathering flavor and nuance in it's warm, moist tube.  When you puff, that smoke is delivered to you, along with any extra smoke you get from the cherry burning like some made for TV effect. (cut to closeup of lit cigar end burning brightly)  This is easy to understand when you are smoking and you find that the more gently you puff on a cigar, the richer the flavor is.  That is because you are not generating too much extra smoke, but only creating that exchange of gasses.  You are taking in the cigars capsule of flavor and at the same time, creating the smoke which fills the tube for your next puff.  YES, from time to time, you also get a rich blast of flavor by puffing aggressively on the smoke.  And yes, you DO have to occasionally puff a little bigger just to keep the fire burning at all.  But your next few puffs will suffer.  In fact, I have found over half a lifetime of smoking cigars, that the best results are achieved by using a 3 to 1 ratio of puffs...you should use 3 gentle puffs followed by one larger-than-normal puff to provide the correct balance of flavor delivery while still maintaining the burn necessary to keep the show moving.  Not 3 little ones and a big one EVERYTIME you puff.  But for every 4 puffs you take, three should be very gentle ones.  The 4th puff is used to keep the fire lit before you return to the gentle puffing technique.  Your own smoking will dictate what works best for you, but this method has delivered maximum enjoyment for me and focuses on the science and mechanics of flavor delivery in what I consider to be the best ratio.  


I was challenged on this one day by a person that said, "That doesn't account for the fact that most of the flavor comes from the wrapper."  First off, to me that has always been a controversial statement to begin with, and you will rarely get the same answer twice if you ask cigar makers.  In fact, they seem to roll their eyes or sigh whenever they are asked.  I was also countered with "but I know that most cigar makers add little bits of ligero in a bunch to add sections of intense flavor changes to a cigar, so flavor has to be created by them burning"  It's true.  Burning tobacco DOES create flavor.  I am just saying that it is the much smaller proportion of flavor when compared to that created by heating and smoke mingling.  Obviously the tobacco closest to the ember will volatilize more effectively, so the proximity of a little chunk of ligero to the ember dictates how much flavor it will add to the mix.  But they will occur whether it burns or simply heats up.  And eventually, it WILL all burn anyway, unless you toss the cigar.


So if you have never been a slow and gentle smoker, maybe you're missing out on where the flavor is.