I have over a thousand cigars in my humidor. That is not a boast. If anything, it is a confession.
Here is what I have been thinking about since.
Cigars are made to be smoked. That sounds obvious until you realise how easy it is to forget. The farmers who grew the leaf, the torcedores who rolled it, the blenders who spent years getting the balance right — every decision in that process pointed toward one moment: someone cutting the cap, lighting the foot, and paying attention. That is the destination the cigar was built for. Not a shelf. Not a humidity-controlled box with a hygrometer reading.
And yet most of us who have been in this world for any amount of time end up with far more cigars than we will ever smoke at a sensible pace.
I want to be honest about how it happens, because it is rarely excess. It is generosity. You meet a friend for a smoke and he slides two cigars across the table because he thought of you when he picked them up. Another friend hands you three from a recent trip, all different blends, all chosen with care. You visit a lounge, spot something interesting, pick up a couple. You find four or five cigars you genuinely trust and so you buy a box, maybe two, because that makes sense. Before long the humidor has depth you never planned for.
That kind of accumulation is not a problem. It is a byproduct of being properly immersed in something. If your humidor fills slowly through experience, community, and generosity, that is a good problem. I would not trade mine for anything.
But there is another kind of collecting. And I think it is worth saying plainly.
Buying cigars you have never tried because they are the latest release. Buying in volume because the price will go up. Buying limited editions not to smoke them but to move them on at a margin. That is a different thing entirely, and it costs other aficionados the chance to enjoy the very cigars they were made for. Limited releases exist because the tobacco is rare or the production is small. When boxes are bought for resale, the cigar never reaches the person it was intended for. The craft goes unappreciated. The moment never happens.
I am not saying this to be preachy. I am saying it because it is worth remembering what the object actually is. A cigar is an invitation. It is asking you to stop, to slow down, to be present. Sitting on a shelf indefinitely, it is just inventory.
Last week I wrote about the difference between a social evening and a solitary one — and how reading the moment before you light changes everything. This week the question behind that one: are you actually smoking the cigars you have? Or are you waiting for a perfect moment that keeps deferring itself?
THE RITUAL THIS WEEK
Last October, a friend handed me a Plasencia Alma Fuerte Generación V Salomón. I did not go looking for it. It arrived as a gift, the way the best cigars often do. I put it in the humidor not because I wanted to collect it, but because I knew it deserved the right moment. A Salomón this bold — full-bodied, built on aged Nicaraguan tobaccos from Estelí, Condega, Jalapa, and Ometepe, built to run for ninety minutes or more — does not get lit on a weekday evening when your attention is already somewhere else.
Spring began arriving in the UK this week. That quiet shift where the evenings hold a little more light and the air feels like it has changed its mind. It felt like the moment. I sat with the Plasencia for the better part of two hours and it gave back exactly what I had waited for.
The opening third is earthy and warm. The shade-grown Jalapa wrapper offers spice that builds slowly rather than arriving all at once, and the Salomón format does what it is supposed to: it opens the experience gradually, allowing the tobacco to settle before you reach the heart of the smoke. By the middle third there is toasted depth — nuts, leather, a long clean warmth that carries right through to the finish. It earned the wait.
That is the point. Not every cigar needs to be lit today. But it needs to be lit. The right moment is not a future you keep deferring. It arrives, and you either recognise it or you miss it.
A CLOSING THOUGHT
The humidor is not the destination. It is the pause before one.
Light something you have been saving. Not carelessly. Intentionally. The right moment is probably closer than you think.
Cigar Ritual is written by Lisardo, founder of Toro Puro.
Notes on cigars, culture, and the moments we choose to slow down.
If a thought lands, reply and tell me what it brought up for you.
