How To Properly Light A Cigar | With Davidoff of London

[Music] hi i'm kirby allison and today i'm back in london one of my favorite places on earth and that is a 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 um 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 uh welcome kirby what a joy to be here uh 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 gonna 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 the 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 at this stage always remind me of burnt almond vanilla just on the nose here nothing's gone into my mouth yet look at that we're almost there you will get through quite a lot of gas when you do the ritual this way now 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 and this is 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 path 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 narrower 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 and it's the 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 july it's the same principle as eddie describes so i tried to lit it evenly all around turning the cigar slow and circular movement catching the tip of the flame i have a second match ready for you dad do you know how 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 miss counting 33 years yes 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 this cruising speed of as i would say and i have to admit i was taught this by zeno himself wow 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 uh later on but to me the best way to light up a cigar is a very slow burning yellow flame ideally either from a 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 like we're not meant to agree on everything it is true otherwise we would not be father and son [Laughter] very well said that [Music] now 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 i'll be 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 legrand it's fantastic for cigar geeks like myself because of course you start with a yellow flame if it's fine for indoors but if you're outdoors or you're in a hurry we have a very large engaged 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's your cigar burning beautifully 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 just exactly yeah well how beautiful what a beautiful way to start such a great evening uh thank you for that both of you great pleasure sharing that with us um i can't help but think that again part of what i love about a cigar is the commitment to time right 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 you know elevates that you know of lighting it properly of cutting it properly and 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 part of this it really was truly remarkable that's wonderful to hear kirby i have to say from from my perspective smoking and enjoying a cigar is a mark of respect as much as this 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 to come through and be used on cigars uh so how do we respect her best and i think this is a wonderful way to justify 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 so dear just 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 uh 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 uh 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 and properly storing it i mean of course one of the things that really sets davidoff 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 a 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 the life well enjoyed as uh 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 i uh 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 taking a making a commitment to time to really just savor this and here we are on a rainy london day par 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 you know 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 ashtray together as we say thank you

Channel: Kirby Allison

Views: 628,096

Keywords: kirby allison, mens fashion, hanger project, cigars, davidoff of london, davidoff of london cigars, cuban cigars, cigar review, cigar expert, mens style, London, Eddie Sahakian, Edward Sahakian, Conversation, experts, how to, cutting, lighting, how to light, light a cigar, smoke cigars

Id: KxTQXmZo9Lc

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 08 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/FixMyFairing]

You can tell that the father and son have a very strong bond.

[u/SkyGuy182]

My favorite kind of ASMR, instructive/demonstrative content from a pro!

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