Man, these cigar sizes and shapes just don’t stop, do they? For everything else in the world, small, medium, and large pretty much covers it. But for cigars, we’ve got every single possibility in between separated, named, and treated as if it were completely different than the rest.
And in Spanish, no less.
Today we have the Lonsdale cigar, a substantial cigar size that’s essentially a fatter version of something like a panatela or Lancero. At 6 or 7 inches, Lonsdale cigars are decently long. And with a ring gauge of 42 or 44, you get fairly normal girth that’s a bump up from its skinnier siblings.
For many, Lonsdales are reminiscent of Havana. The more modern trend of fatter cigars with bigger ring gauges is a somewhat western concept. A lot of the elegant, refined smokes find their home in Cuba, amidst the old-time smokers and aficionados there. That’s not to say that Lonsdales are some kind of mandatory format in the Cuban capital, only that the smokers who favor them tended to be islanders of a certain age.
Of course, trends come and go, and each smoker has their own preferences, but Lonsdales are distinctly Cuban in the minds of many.
Here at Cigars Direct, Lonsdale cigars are offered by a number of premium cigar brands. You can find Lonsdales from Drew Estate, Joya de Nicaragua, Padrón, Arturo Fuente, Rocky Patel, AJ Fernandez, and more. Many of these are in some of these companies’ most popular lines, so if there’s a particular blend that you already enjoy, you can give it a shot in a Lonsdale and see how the size stacks up against any other you might already have picked up. In particular, if there’s a vitola you’ve wanted to last longer (like a Robusto or corona), the Lonsdale may give you what you’re looking for thanks to a step up in burn time.
The flavor is not so concentrated as in thinner cigar sizes like the panatela or Lancero, which sport smaller ring gauges. Instead, the draw is a bit more open. This also means that the wrapper flavor in the smoke from a Lonsdale cigar isn’t as dominant as in thinner cigars. There’s a little more room to beef up the core blend and add more tobacco leaf.
One of the all-time classic cigars to smoke in the Lonsdale format is the Montecristo No. 1. It’s a Cuban specialty that truly never goes out of style, which makes it a great place to start exploring this cigar size if you aren’t familiar with it. Put down the big spicy fatties, and give this one a shot when you need a little refined sophistication.
Please browse our selection of Lonsdale Cigars at your leisure.
