Let’s talk about mild-medium cigars. Did things really have to get this complicated?
As you can imagine, rating a cigar’s strength can be pretty straightforward. Cigar makers probably started with “strong” and “not” a long time ago. Some cigars had strong smoke and people were told to go easy with them. Others were not. And that was as much cigar strength classification as we needed.
Easy, you know?
But then there were some cigars that didn’t quite fit into either category and “medium” was born. Okay, not a big deal. There were cigars between strong and not, and we needed a way to best describe them in reviews. The problem is, people really like tobacco and cigars, and some people are smoking them all the time! Their experience got nuanced, and eventually, if you asked them if a cigar was strong, they could tell you that the smoke wasn’t quite medium, but it wasn’t fully mild either.
The mild-medium cigar was born (and so was medium-full).
Mild medium cigars are one tick up from mild. While mild cigars can be trusted to deliver a very small amount of nicotine, compared to other cigars, mild-medium cigars bring you up one level and add some potency. If you find that milds aren’t really delivering the experience you need, a mild-medium cigar may show up with a bit more intensity.
As with all strength ratings, it’s important to know what cigar strength is really about. Many people confuse it with body, which is the mouthfeel of the smoke of a cigar. Strength is focused on the nicotine content in the tobacco and how stimulating a cigar is. If you’re huffing on a cigar and you start to feel nauseous or dizzy, or your heart starts racing, that’s the nicotine going a little too fast for you. For best results, have some water, and pace your draws more slowly. Spread them out and make your puffs smaller.
A mild-medium strength cigar rating also doesn’t tell you anything about flavor. Cigars that aren’t super potent can still deliver full and robust flavor in their smoke, as you can see from reviews. In fact, some mild-medium cigars are among the most interesting on the market. A few examples of these cigars with rich flavor include the Arturo Fuente Gran Reserva Flor Fina 858 Maduro, Ashton Classic, Montecristo White Label, and Tatuaje Cabaiguan.
Someday, cigar strength will be rated from 1 to 10 (on some sites, various characteristics of cigars already are). But until that day comes, we’ll just work with mild-medium cigars – that’s more than enough precision for us.
Please browse our selection of mild-medium strength cigars at your leisure!
