Whether you prefer the sweet earthiness of a Maduro or the rich, full body of broadleaf tobacco, picking up one of your favorites, inhaling the sweet incense, and then looking forward to the next hour or more that you will spend enjoying is an experience that cannot be topped. There are plenty out there who do not fully understand the joy of the experience, and to each his own, but to enjoy a cigar completely requires ritual and respect.
You need to slow down to enjoy the cigar, and the experience does not begin and end with the lighting of it. It begins when you first lay eyes on it. From the dark red beauty of an Alec Bradley Prensado Corona Gorda to the lighter, more immediately arresting character of an Arturo Fuente OpusX Perfecxion Number 5, the enjoyment of a cigar begins at first sight. It is a full sensory experience that goes beyond taste and smell.
Beyond the visual aesthetics of the cigar, the experience yields to the touch and the feeling of its construction. Pick up your favorite cigar and you will develop a familiar to that point that you might even be able to identify it blindfolded. Box pressed cigars and traditionally rolled cigars will all feel different in the hand and on top of that there is the feeling of each individual cigar.
Before you even light it, there are the distinct olfactory signatures of the cigar as they relate to the aromas of the pre-lit tobacco and the cold draw. You will develop an appreciation for the flavors of the cigar on the tongue before you even apply a lit sliver of cedar to the end of it. There’s no way to concisely illustrate the experience, but the profile of flavors that you might experience from the cold draw may merit a half-hour of tasting in their own right.
Even after you light the cigar the experience has only just begun; it is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. In fact, the flavors of the cigar through the first third will be impacted by the method you use to light it. Cedar, matches, and lighters will all impart flavor (or lack thereof) in the cigar and influence the first few draws. There are rituals and procedures to follow for this and each of them will have an impact on the experience. Then, the speed at which you smoke the cigar, the temperature of your surroundings, the humidity, and the way you smoke will impact the flavor and experience as well. For example, some smokers enjoy the retro-hale. Others prefer to smoke in a windlass location and enclose themselves within a wreath so they can enjoy some of the flavor and scents of the room note. Additionally, the cigar will develop through the lifetime of the smoke - most will categorize this according to thirds.
Without elaborating further, it can easily be seen even with this short introduction how each cigar presents its own multisensory experience, and that there are many fine points to enjoy. If you have developed a collection of favorite blends, why then, might you want to try out a gamble and buy cigar samplers online?
As it turns out, there is nothing wrong with keeping a number of favorites well-stocked in your humidor, but there are a number of equally good reasons to try out cigar samplers if you get the opportunity; and here at Atlantic Cigar, the opportunity is ever-present. Check out our following list of reasons to try out some cigar samplers and see if any of them applies to you. If so, visit our page of cigar samplers and pick out a couple to try.
1.You Don't Have Favorites Yet
The first and probably the best reason you might want to give some samplers a try is if you don’t have well-cultivated tastes in tobacco just yet. However, this point also applies to people who know what some of their favorites are. We can take a two-pronged approach to explain this point.
In the first case, we’re considering those who have just gotten into the enjoyment of fine tobacco and aren’t really sure of their preferences at all. When you’re shopping for cigars online, you can’t really get familiar with given cigars the way you can in a shop, so you need to rely on reviews or the input and guidance of experts like our team here at Atlantic Cigar. That being said, by picking out a sampler with a number of different cigars in it, you can very cost-effectively expose yourself to a number of different flavors to determine what your favorites are. In one way or another, it’s a bit like a crash course introduction to all of the different flavors that are out there. It can help you really key in on what you like in a cigar, which is an important thing for any cigar smoker to identify.
In the second case, cigar samplers are great for those smokers who have keyed in on what their favorite tobaccos or brands are. Whether you are a fan of CAO, Alec Bradley, Perdomo, or another cigar maker, you can pick up samplers that no doubt will contain several of their star cigars.
They’re even better, however, for those who have identified the types of cigars or tobaccos but not the brands that they enjoy most. Let’s say you have determined that you enjoy cigars with Habano or Connecticut broadleaf wrappers, or cigars with Dominican or Honduran fillers. You can pick up samplers that represent some of your favorite types of tobaccos and go from there. That will go a little further in helping you identify what you enjoy most.
2.Keep Down Costs
As touched upon in the previous section, trying out samplers is a great way to investigate a large number of different types of cigars but the key here is that it is a cost-friendly way to do so. You can buy a single cigar one at a time in order to figure out what you like best, or you can try out a sampler every now and then hoping to key in on some of your favorites and hope to find them that way. We’ll give you a hint as to which option is the most economical and effective - the sampler route.
Plus, you can enjoy cost savings some of the time when you pick up samplers as opposed to trying them all individually. If you were to pick up a box of three or four different types of cigars, you’d end up spending significantly more than if you just a sampler that contained those cigars all in one. The experience would be the same and you’d spend less money and there’d be less time invested in the process as well.
In short, if you’re looking for a cheaper way to expose yourself to a large number of cigars in short order without having to smoke through five of the same cigar to get to the next one, a cigar sampler may be just the ticket for you. To that last point, check out the following reason to buy cigar samplers online.
3.Broaden Your Horizons
If you are a person who enjoys the rich, heavy notes of the fullest bodied cigars out there, then that is more than likely what you spend most of your time enjoying. In the same way, a pipe smoker who appreciates a sweet black cavendish probably doesn’t spend a lot of time or money packing his bowl with some spicy latakia.
It’s important to enjoy what you enjoy - that is the point of smoking a cigar, anyway, but at the same time there is a wealth of different flavors in tobacco out there in the world, and if you don’t expose yourself to them, you’ll never learn what more there is to love.
Trying out a cigar sampler that you get on a whim can expose you to a new brand’s lineup of flavors. For example, you can pick up one of our Perdomo Flight Packs and there will be a number of different types of cigars in the mix. We don’t just mean cigars of different styles and ring gauges - we mean cigars with different fillers and wrappers that are fundamentally different in flavor from the others next to them. In one sampler, you can expose yourself to 10 or 20 different blends for the price - or less than the price - of a box of cigars.
It’s a bit like a curveball because sometimes you don’t know what you’re getting, but at the same time, it’s one of the best ways to expose yourself to new experiences that you may end up loving.
4.Convenience
In addition to main reasons you might want to buy cigar samplers online, there is also a huge factor of convenience. Sometimes you might enjoy the benefit of being able to walk into a tobacco shop where you know the owner and get to feel and smell a cigar before you pull the trigger, but shopping online offers a whole entire level of convenience that you just can’t get anywhere else.
Buying a sampler entails an element of uncertainty anyway since in some cases you’ll be trying out things you’ve never had to begin with, and shopping online will allow you to do so from the comfort of your own home. There won’t be any undue expenditures of gas or time, and you can sift through all of the options at your disposal right from your computer screen. It can save you time and money. In fact, it could save you time and money even if Atlantic Cigar wasn’t so well positioned to offer you the best cigar prices on the top cigar brands on the market - and we do.
5.Stock for Guests
Our final reason that you might want to consider giving a cigar sampler a go is to keep the humidor well-stocked - not just for you, but for guests.
Frankly, as enjoyable as it can be to enjoy a nice cigar in peace and silence, it can be every ounce as pleasant to do so in good company. And, as not everyone has the same tastes in tobacco, you might want to keep some other cigars on hand in the humidor for any company that joins you. Just like you might keep some drinks in the bar that you yourself didn’t prefer but you knew your friends to enjoy, you could do the same with cigars. On top of all of the other benefits that come with a cigar sampler, this is just one more to add to the list. By the same token, if you stumbled upon a cigar of which you were not particularly fond and had spares, you could keep them on hand for a company that might enjoy them more than you. It isn’t a reason to buy a sampler in its own right, but it does give you additional flexibility.
At Atlantic Cigar, our mission is to bring you the best collection of premium cigars at the lowest prices. In our collection, you will find lines of cigars from Rocky Patel, Romeo y Julieta, Partagas, Montecristo, Alec Bradley, and many more favorites. In addition to our many famous cigars, we also sell tobacco related products and cigar accessories like lighters, cutters, cases, ashtrays, and more.
You won’t just find cigars, humidors, and accessories here, though. You can also find plenty of samplers based on brand and style that will satisfy nearly any taste, and for those tastes that are not well established, our samplers are perfect.
We’re also proud to extend our hand of service to you since there are so many options out there and it can be hard to sift through it all. Give our team a call at 800-887-7877 and we’d be more than happy to make recommendations in samplers to you based on your preferences. Otherwise, take a look through our collection of cigar brands and pick out your favorite selections.