How to Light a Hand Rolled Cigar with a Lighter

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Matthew Driggers and we are here at Cigar Castle in Tampa, Florida. And, on behalf of Expert Village this is How to Hand Roll Cigars: Smoking Tips and Techniques. The next thing I want to talk about is actually lighting the cigar. We talked about the different types of lighting but we are going to use a standard type of cigar lighter with a single flame, and I'm going to take this cigar right here and show you how to do it. Now, there are, there is one thing you need to remember when lighting a cigar and that is respect the cigar. When you light it, you don't want to jam the lighter up into it because one, the flame is hot, as I said before tobacco is very sensitive to temperature; especially, that s why there kept, when there stored there kept as a specific humidity level and temperature, but when you light it your going to keep the flame below it, hold the cigar above it. It's like toasting a marshmallow. When you toast a marshmallow to fast, it's going to catch on fire, but you take your time lighting it above the flame. You don't actually need to hold it directly on the flame, it will light. You don't have to worry about that. You just toast it evenly around the edges until it's lit all the way around. You've got a nice orange glow. Turns the cigar don?t worry about moving the lighter. The next thing you?re going to do after this is your going to put it into your mouth and your going to puff on it while you?re turning it. And, notice what I did there, after I finished puffing on it I blew on the end to make sure it was all lit because it will light up when you do that. Now, this cigar is kind of burning unevenly that points to construction not being that great because I didn't light it wrong, so that's how you light it with a lighter."