How To Properly Light A Cigar With Davidoff of London

Hi, I'm Kirby Allison and today I'm back in London, one of my favorite places on earth, and that is Davidoff of London, of course with the Sahakians, Edward Sahakian, Eddie Sahakian, two legends in the cigar industry and two commensurate gentlemen, and certainly also experts in the ritual of how to properly smoke a cigar. I thought that on today's video, you know, kind of coming at the heels of our How to Cut a Cigar video that you filmed with us, that we would talk a little bit about the ritual of how to properly light a cigar. And again, I can think of two no greater experts in the world than the two of you. May I, dad? May I step in? Please, Eddie. Well, may I first say welcome, Kirby. What a joy to be here. You've quite rightly touched on the ritual, and for us it is a ritual. It's the beginning of an extraordinary process. I'm going to use a nice simple guillotine cut here to prepare my cigar for the lighting. I like this. It's clean, it's efficient, and I'm cutting just over the line here of the cap. There we are. Just trim it. Now it's ready. My first light I'm going to do with a soft flame lighter. By soft flame, I mean a yellow flame as opposed to a blue flame. It's a lower temperature burn, and it works beautifully, very, very well with a cigar. The key considerations, of course, are that there's no bad odor, so always using a butane gas, not paraffin. And of course, with a soft flame, you want to be indoors, away from a draft. If you have those ingredients, very easy. I'm using a classic lighter here that my father gifted me. It's actually got a split valve, which gives you a wider yellow flame to encompass a wider gauge cigar, as I have now. You bring the foot of the cigar just above the tip of the yellow flame there, and you're slowly rotating, introducing the leaves to their timely end. You want to rush it. It can be so tantalizing when you're ready to have a cigar, but if you can be patient with this stage, you will be rewarded. Many people put the cigar straight into the mouth and light it. You can do that, but then you're adulterating the first puff, what I call the magic first experience of the cigar. So be patient. Do it like this. I'm blowing on the end to see that it's all uniformly lit. Of course, it's not yet. It does take time. There we are. Now it's toasting beautifully. I can tell you the aromas coming off the cigar. This stage always reminds me of burnt almond vanilla. Just on the nose here. Nothing's gone into my mouth yet. We're almost there. You will get through quite a lot of gas when you do the ritual this way. These days, it's a rare commodity gas. Be careful. Well said, Dad. I'm literally burning dollars and pounds as we speak. I'm almost there now. The last light. The end is glowing. It's ready. Kirby, may I? Thank you. Brilliant. Delicious. You're a true master. So tell me about this first puff. So what you're tasting is literally the virgin puff of that cigar. Because you haven't used your palate to light it, hasn't been in the mouth, you haven't introduced half-burnt or poorly combusted flames into your mouth. This is, in my opinion, the perfect introduction to a beautiful cigar and one worthy of a very well-made handmade cigar. If you start the journey on the right foot, we always hope you'll get to the right destination. Now, may I move on to the second type of cut, please? For this one, I'm going to use a punch cut. I'm going to use the narrow gauge. Davidoff have a very interesting innovation where you can pick slightly different diameters on the punch cut. It's a very clean way to cut the cigar. If you're worried about a slightly dry cigar or perhaps an old cigar, this will minimize the harm you can do by cracking it further down than you would expect. As you can see, pops out, that's done. Now for this light, I'm going to hand over to the master, the man who taught me. Dad, may I trouble you to do your magic? I would love to. My favorite way of lighting a cigar, of course, under the circumstances, would be matches. That's my first choice. Of course, it's not possible outdoors these days, but there's something magical about lighting a cigar with a wooden match, sulfur-free, and it's a great way to start a cigar. It's the same principle as Eddie described. So I try to lit it evenly all around, turning the cigar in slow and circular movement, catching the tip of the flame. I have a second match ready for you, Dad. Do you like it? I think I should. Just to make it a perfect start. Thank you, Eddie. By the way, I was sitting pretty much here and my father did almost exactly the same thing 20, 23 years ago. I was 16. You were 16 years old. No, excuse me. Am I? Yes, I'm miscounting. 33 years old. You were 16 years old and I forced you to smoke your first cigar. So if you're going to smoke anything ever in your life, might as well smoke the best. And this is what you're going to smoke, a nice cigar. Now I've lit it all around. It's lit. It's warming up. It's at its cruising speed, as I would say. And I have to admit, I was taught this by Zeno himself. And he showed me how to do this and he explained half in English, half in French. The older reasons why it's so important to gradually and very slowly to light up a cigar. I think Eddie is going to talk about the blue flame later on. But to me, the best way to light up a cigar is a very slow burning yellow flame, ideally either from the wooden, sulfur-free matches or a gas lighter. Because it lights the cigar before it burns it. The blue flame, it turns it into charcoal before it actually lights it up. That's my opinion. We don't necessarily agree on that and I'll explain why. Beautifully lit. Well, we're not meant to agree on everything, Eddie. Otherwise, we would not be father and son. Very well said that. This is a perfect cigar, perfectly lit and ready to be enjoyed. Now, carry on. I was going to say I feel very left out here. Two beautiful cigars being smoked. So, for my third cigar, we're doing the classic cut again. Beautiful guillotine, admittedly on a thinner ring gauge. Again, very straightforward. We're looking for the line here, just above the line. Sharp instrument. That's it. Now, very fortunate to have a hybrid Dupont here. It's called Le Grand. It's fantastic for cigar geeks like myself because, of course, you start with the yellow flame. It's fine for indoors. But if you're outdoors or you're in a hurry, you have a very large ring gauge cigar perhaps, or you just want to use a blue flame, you push up and look at that. It turns into an extraordinary little blue flame. Again, very easy to use. And the issue my father mentioned about charring the cigar, you can mitigate that. Don't bring it too close. The mistake so many people make with a blue flame is they use either a very wide blue flame or they bring it too close to the cigar and indeed it will char it. If you can be accurate and you can be specific on the cigar, you will light it almost as well. Admittedly, not as perfectly as with a yellow flame. There we are. You can see it's now glowing. How is your cigar burning? Beautiful. Can I recommend a slight adjustment as you're smoking it, as we have a slight draft because of the ventilation? After every other puff, just turn it one quarter of a turn. That way it will not burn sideways and that's very important. I guess whatever is facing up is going to burn slightly faster. Yes, exactly. Well, how beautiful. What a beautiful way to start such a great evening. Thank you for that, both of you, for sharing that with us. I can't help but think that, again, part of what I love about a cigar is the commitment to time. That's really what it is. When you smoke a cigar, time is really what is required to fully enjoy that in good company, of course, of which we've got tonight. But the ritual elevates that, of lighting it properly, of cutting it properly. I think of decanting wine, right? I mean, if you were to open a fine wine and just drink it straight out of the bottle, it's not the same experience as properly decanting it. You know, but here I must admit that I certainly fall victim to sometimes rushing into that first puff. And I have to say, the first puff for this, that virgin puff that you were describing, really was magnificent. And none of the kind of harsher notes that often you get when you rush it did I experience in the first puff of this. It really was truly remarkable. That's wonderful to hear, Kirby. I have to say, from my perspective, smoking and enjoying a cigar is a mark of respect as much as it is a calming ritual for us and, of course, an opportunity to share the leaf. But we must always mark and respect the person who took the time to roll this extraordinary object, Mother Nature, allowing us this tobacco to come through and be used on cigars. So how do we respect her best? And I think this is a wonderful way to start it. One of the things I really love about a cigar is I think that more so than really anything else I can think of, it really epitomizes three of the values that I hold so dear, which is quality, craftsmanship, and tradition. And when you think about a cigar, and I'm very much into the world of what's handmade, handmade shoes, handmade suits, there are few, I can't think of anything that is handmade to a larger degree, scale, and scope than Cuban cigars. And what I love about it is unlike maybe a bespoke suit or a bespoke pair of shoes, you know, this is something that really everyone can enjoy. I completely agree with you, Kirby. The amount of pair of hands that go into getting involved in producing the cigars, probably over 200 times it's been touched by various people, various stages of from harvesting the tobacco to finishing this beautiful cigar. And probably the last pair of hands that will touch it is our fingers holding it and turning it into ash. Well, let's not forget about, you know, what goes into aging it and properly storing it. I mean, of course, one of the things that really sets Dab It Off of London apart is the incredible stock of vintage cigars that have been under your care for years, if not decades. And so, again, kind of taking something that is so well made, so well crafted with such tradition, and really allowing that to develop even further into something even more special and something even more rare. But it is widely accessible. I mean, you can smoke a fantastic Cuban for as little as 15 or 20 dollars and really be a part of that great tradition. Tradition and pleasure. And pleasure. The life well enjoyed, as you guys have done such a great job of kind of helping indoctrinate me into. The ultimate luxury, perhaps? Can we call it that? I think so. I mean, and again, I mean, certainly those who watch the channel, you know, hear me speak about this often, but it's those values of quality, craftsmanship, and tradition. And again, the quality of the tobacco leaves, you know, the quality of the soil, right? The craftsmanship with which these are rolled completely by hand. It's very important. Absolutely. And then just the tradition of the Cuban cigar industry, right? The tradition of gentlemen and women enjoying fine cigars in good company, and really taking a moment and making a commitment to time to really just savor this. And here we are on a rainy London day, you know, transported perhaps, if not to Cuba, certainly somewhere heavenly. Yes, well that is for certain. I mean, I can't think of any other place I'd want to be right now. And then, of course, being able to enjoy this in your company is really the pinnacle of living well. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. Again, it's going to have me approach that ritual of lighting a cigar with much more reverence than before. So, of course, thank you, gentlemen, for your time. And for those watching, of course, we've got such a treasure trove of great content with these gentlemen. Truly unique and certainly rare in this modern society. And so thank you for sharing all of your passion and your knowledge with us today. Gary, it's been a great pleasure for both Eddie and myself to be able to sit and share an ashtray together, as we say. Thank you.