Cigars in Mount Dora, FL

Cigars are one of the quieter corners of the shop and one of the easiest to get wrong on your own. Come and look at what’s in, and ask — that’s faster than reading a label.

The brands on the shelf

Every cigar in this shop is a legal, US-market cigar. That matters more than it sounds, because several of the most famous names in cigars exist twice over.

Romeo y Julieta, Cohiba, Montecristo, H. Upmann, Partagás, Punch and Hoyo de Monterrey are all Havana names — and they all have a separate, legally distinct American edition, rolled in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua by Altadis USA and General Cigar, who hold the United States trademarks. Those are the ones sold here, the ones sold in every legitimate shop in the country, and the ones in our humidor.

Anybody in Florida offering you a genuine Havana is either mistaken or lying to you. Cuban-origin tobacco cannot lawfully be sold in the United States, and the personal-import allowance that briefly existed was withdrawn in 2020. What’s real is the tobacco: Cuban-seed leaf, grown by Cuban families who left, on soil in Estelí and the Dominican Republic that suits it. For most of the last thirty years that’s where the best cigars in the world have actually been made.

What we keep:

• Romeo y Julieta — Dominican, mild to medium, the easiest place to start
• Cohiba — the General Cigar Dominican edition
• Montecristo — Altadis, La Romana
• Arturo Fuente — Dominican, family-owned since 1912, never Cuban and never needed to be
• H. Upmann, Partagás, Punch, Hoyo de Monterrey — the rest of the Havana-name family in their US editions
• Cigarillos and machine-mades — for when you want twenty minutes, not two hours

Stock rotates and the humidor is smaller than the list. Call before you make a trip for one specific thing and we’ll look.

Singles, boxes and accessories

Singles — buy one, try it, come back for more if it suited you. The sensible way to find out what you like without committing to a box.

Boxes — for the ones you already know you like. Ask; if it isn’t in, we can usually order it.

Accessories — cutters, punches, lighters and torches. Scorch and Clipper on the shelf, torch lighters for the cigars that want one, and Boveda packs for keeping a box right once it’s yours.

What to know before you buy

Buy a single first. Cigars vary more between brands than almost anything else in the shop, and a box of something you don’t enjoy is an expensive lesson. Nobody will think less of you for buying one.

Size changes the experience more than people expect. A shorter, thinner cigar is a twenty-minute thing. A larger ring gauge runs cooler and lasts considerably longer. If you’ve got half an hour, don’t buy an hour’s worth.

Cut less than you think. You’re opening the cap, not removing it. Too deep and the wrapper unravels on you.

Toast, don’t scorch. Hold the flame near the foot and let it catch rather than driving it in. A torch makes this easier than a soft flame, which is most of the argument for owning one.

Keep them at the right humidity. A cigar that dries out is finished — nothing brings it back. A Boveda pack in a sealed box costs very little and saves the box.

Come and see what’s in

The humidor is behind the counter and the staff will open it for you. Tell them what you usually smoke, or tell them you’ve never had one before — both are useful starting points and neither gets a lecture.