Tuesday, July 19 2011
Among the most popular topics I've written about over the years have been on cutting cigars and cigar cutters. I've used just about every cigar cutter imaginable and practically every cutting technique until last night. While watching the ballgame I was suddenly in the mood for an Arturo Fuente Chateau Fuente Maduro, a sweet-tasting little Rothschild en cedro. Thing was, I couldn't find a cutter. I knew I had a couple of them upstairs, but I was looking for one I had seen somewhere earlier in the house. I poked around and nada. Too lazy to run upstairs and get one of my Xikars, I thought, "Hey, I've never cut a cigar with my fingernail." I had read about this technique which is practiced in Cuba, so I figured I'd give it a try.
First, I needed a nail long enough to cut through and around the circumference of the
cap. Since I stopped biting my nails long ago, my nails tend to get a bit long at times. My thumbnail looked like it might do the trick; besides it was thicker and I felt I could get the best leverage with it. Being lefty, I held the cigar in my left
hand, carefully pressed my right thumbnail in under the cap and rotated the cigar until I had completed the circle. Next, I pulled up on the cap and it came off fairly clean. The loose bits of tobacco that made up part of the
shoulder I bit off as evenly as I could. As you can see by the somewhat blurry photo, it wasn't the prettiest cut I'd ever made, but the cigar smoked beautifully.
Then, this morning as I was preparing to write this little anecdote, I realized that there was still one more type of cutter I hadn't used, and I doubt many of you reading this have either, because it's so new. It's called the SHURIKEN cutter. Distributed by Cigar Tech, SHURIKEN, which means "blade hidden in the hand," is better known to martial artists as a Japanese Throwing Star. Inside the cutter are six razor sharp blades (see photo).
To cut your cigar, you place the head of the cigar into the housing, push it forward and the blades cut slits around the perimeter of the shoulders. The further you push the head into the blades the deeper the cut. I tested it out this morning on a Robusto and would have taken a photo, but the slits are so thin, you can barely see them. It drew pretty well, but putting some gentle pressure on the head opened the slits a bit more and the draw improved dramatically, even with the cap still intact! More to come on this newfangled cutter, as I plan on doing a video on it soon.
So, just when I thought I'd done it all. Go figure…
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