There is a question every cigar smoker gets asked eventually.

Do you inhale?

No.

For someone who has never smoked a cigar, this can seem rather strange.

You light one end.
Put the other in your mouth.
Draw in the smoke.

And then simply let it go.

So what exactly are we doing?

A cigar is puffed.

The smoke is drawn into the mouth, held briefly, and released without deliberately pulling it into the lungs.

Nicotine does not need to reach the lungs to enter the body. It can also be absorbed through the lining of the mouth.

So inhaling cigar smoke is unnecessary.

In fact, this idea has become rather relevant again.

Look around today and nicotine is increasingly consumed without smoke at all.

Nicotine pouches such as snus-style products sit beneath the lip. Nicotine gum is chewed. Patches deliver it through the skin.

They remove combustion entirely and therefore avoid the inhalation of tobacco smoke.

If nicotine were the only reason for smoking a cigar, these modern alternatives would make a cigar look almost ridiculous.

Cheaper.

Quicker.

More convenient.

No lighter required.

But that is precisely the point.

A cigar is a remarkably inefficient way to consume nicotine.

And we like it that way.

The modern world has become very good at extracting the function from things.

Coffee becomes caffeine tablets.

Food becomes meal replacements.

Nicotine becomes a pouch beneath the lip.

We isolate the thing we want and find the fastest possible way of getting it.

A cigar moves in the opposite direction.

It takes something that could now be delivered in seconds and stretches it across an hour.

There is cutting it.

Lighting it.

Keeping it lit.

Holding it.

Watching it slowly disappear.

We spend much of our lives trying to make things faster.

And often, that is progress.

But perhaps not everything should be reduced to its function.

A dinner is an inefficient way to consume calories.

A handwritten letter is an inefficient way to communicate.

And a cigar is an extraordinarily inefficient way to consume nicotine.

Yet remove the inefficiency and somehow you remove much of what made the thing worth doing in the first place.

Sometimes the steps between wanting something and getting it are not obstacles.

They are the experience.

Until next time.

Yours truly,
The Cigar Lover

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