Cigarillos: what makes them different?

Here is a question that comes up again and again: what is the difference between a cigarillo and a cigar? Smoking helps you see things more clearly with this article.

The physical differences

When you compare a cigar and a cigarillo, the first difference is visible to the naked eye. It lies in the diameter, and sometimes in the overall size. To be allowed to carry the name cigarillo, this mini cigar must not exceed 1.2 cm in diameter and 3 g in weight. There is, however, no limit on its length.

Most cigarillos are also ready to smoke. With rare exceptions, the head is already open and they do not need to be cut beforehand. Of course, depending on where they are made and on the way they have been rolled, the quality of cigarillos varies a great deal.

The technical differences

The tobacco used to roll a cigarillo is cut tobacco. The wrapper, for its part, comes from entry-level leaves or from brown cigarette paper. Cigars are rolled with quality leaves and a wrapper with a smooth, even appearance.

Hand-made cigarillos are also very rare, unlike good cigars. That is one of the reasons for the price gap between a cigar and a cigarillo: the cigarillo is the more affordable of the two, while the cigar remains a distinctly more expensive product.

Finally, when it comes to taste, the cigar is described as more expressive and more characterful than the cigarillo. The fact that cigarillos are machine-rolled with cut leaves counts for a great deal here. In terms of flavour, top-of-the-range cigarillos are generally held to be the equivalent of mid-quality cigars. A cigarillo is also sometimes given artificial flavourings.

As you will have gathered, a cigarillo is not a small cigar. Many people associate it with the idea of a woman’s cigar, because it is slimmer. Some Spanish-speaking countries also use the word cigarillo for small cigars, which is where the confusion between these two products sometimes comes from.