What You Need

You need less than the shops would like you to think. A cutter, a flame, and something to set the cigar down on. That is the whole list. Everything past it is comfort or collecting, and you can come to that later, or never.

About the picks: these are just things I would put in my own hands, and I have kept them cheap on purpose, because that is the honest answer. The links go out to look each one up. I do not earn anything from them, and where the costly version is not worth it, I say so.

Worth buying

A cutter

Get a double-blade guillotine. Two blades close from both sides and meet in the middle, so they slice the cap clean instead of crushing it the way a single blade can. A good one runs about fifteen dollars. A forty-dollar one cuts the same cigar the same way.

That is the cut to start with. Once you have smoked a few you may want a punch or a V for certain shapes, but a straight cutter handles everything, and it is the one I reach for most.

Find a good cutter

Worth buying

A flame

You have two honest options, and both are cheap. A single-torch butane lighter is the workhorse. It lights fast, it holds up in wind, and butane burns clean, so it leaves no taste. Fifteen to twenty dollars, refillable, done.

Or use long wooden matches, which cost almost nothing and slow you down in a good way. The one thing to skip is a fluid lighter like a Zippo. The fluid taints the first few puffs, and you will taste it.

Find a torch lighter

Worth buying

An ashtray

Anything that holds ash and gives the cigar a place to rest will do. A cheap one with a wide notch is plenty. The point of the rest is that the cigar sits up off the tray so it does not go out, and you do not need to spend much to get that.

Outdoors I have set one down on a rock and on the lid of a coffee mug more than once. Indoors is where a real tray earns its keep.

Find an ashtray

Skip for now

A humidor

If you smoke a handful a year, the way I do, you do not need one. Buy the cigars when you are going to smoke them, and the question never comes up.

If you want to keep a few on hand, put them in a sealed plastic box with a Boveda pack, a small pouch that holds the air at the right moisture on its own. A few dollars, and it does what a three-hundred-dollar cabinet does. The cabinet is for people building a collection, which is a different hobby than smoking one now and then.

Find Boveda packs

That is the whole kit. Spend what you saved on a better cigar, which is the only part of any of this that changes how the hour goes. If you have the gear and not the cigar yet, here is how to find a shop.

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