I’ll let our friends at Famous Smoke Shop tell you a little bit about this unique new tool:
The cigar flavor wheel – it’s how cigar lovers talk to each other. Are you wondering how to identify and taste the different flavors in your cigar? Or maybe you’ve been reading some cigar reviews, and want to know how the writer sensed certain tastes. With a flavor wheel, anyone can get into cigar tasting, regardless of your experience level.
And that’s why we’ve created this updated cigar tasting wheel…we wanted to give everyone a way to identify and discuss the flavors found in cigars. everyone in the cigar world, from blenders to smokers, uses a flavor wheel – these words provide everybody with a common vocabulary that we can use to discuss specific qualities of the cigars we smoke. You know that a cigar tastes like more than just burning tobacco; the smoke can be characterized by notes of earth, nuts, cream and many more nuances.
How to use our Cigar Flavor Wheel
We didn’t make up these spots on our cigar flavor wheel. They’re all very real, each of them a flavor sensation that either we sensed while reviewing a cigar, or was mentioned in a review by someone whose opinion we trust.
Think of the wheel as a visual glossary of the most-often mentioned cigar flavors, organized into categories – or even more appropriately, families. each color-coded part of the wheel is loaded with words that match up with the qualities you might sense in a smoke. That way, when you try and describe the things you like about your cigar, we can understand more clearly – because we know what those flavors taste like, too.
What the Categories Mean
The primary categories of the cigar flavor wheel are at the center. From there, we break those outward into subcategories. Related categories appear side-by-side, and we’ve color coded the groupings to reflect the feel of each family: green for plants, yellow for spices, etc.
To use this flavor wheel for cigars, fire one up and start at the center – as you smoke, think about the basic flavors you’re sensing. Then you can proceed to narrow down these general observations into more specific flavors, as you move toward the outer rings of the wheel. That way, you can note which cigars have the flavors you like (or the ones that don’t), and discuss your experience with other cigar smokers.
Click here to open the Advisors’ Cigar Flavor Wheel as a PDF – then save it to use the next time you’re smoking cigars!
Want to learn more? Here’s a quick video of your friendly neighborhood Tuesday Night Cigar Club discussing the Cigar Flavor Wheel on a recent episode. We’ve used it quite a bit since and have found it highly useful. Now get to tasting!
