Why some cigars burn with a cone-like ash

Friday, February 04 2011

Q: What causes some cigars to burn with a cone-like ash?
- Jerry in Carteret, NJ

A: Cigars that burn with a sharp, cone-shape ash have most likely been rolled using a technique called "booking." Booking is done by placing all of the filler leaves from the bunch atop one another, then rolling them up like a scroll.

There is an alternative method called " entubar" in which the filler leaves are each rolled into individual cylinders. Cigars rolled using this technique will normally ash with a straight edge.

According to one of my sources, the entubar method is more labor intensive, but cigars rolled in this manner also tend to draw better overall.

Finally, neither rolling technique is necessarily better than the other; it's more a matter of preference by the manufacturer.