Flavor bombs are different than flavored cigars. It means the tobaccos are specially chosen and blended to present much more flavor than the old Cubanesque cigar style. It usually refers to a cigar that hits full flavor early on and comes through with very distinct flavors from the tobacco. Look up Kohnheads review of the Paul Stulac Lord of Albany or Ashton Aged Maduro to get an idea. The Stogie reviews review of the Room 101 San Andres is also a good example.
With cigar tobaccos there is a difference in how they give off secondary flavors. With pipes a Burley might be "nutty" but it is undeniably Burley first. With a cigar the tobacco can give off something of caramel, cream, coffee, wood, leather, or any number of flavors without ever fully disclosing the tobacco type. Much of this comes from the soil it was grown in. So, unlike pipe tobaccos it isn't really looking for the flavor of a particular varital. It is looking for the flavor of the soil it was grown in. Cigar tobacco is raised in certain regions because the soil imparts flavors based on the composition of minerals, organic matter from local vegetation, and other factors. Then they chose the tobaccos from different parts of the plant to highlight the amount of that effect that is present. Then they mix the various tobaccos and primings to get combinations that trick your mind in to tasting other things. Well at least the new breed of flavor bombs work that way.
One of the big differences is that cigars don't use as much casing and topping. That is why using a maduro binder or something of that nature is usually highlighted. Treating the wrapper by fermenting it or processing it is not unusual. Doing that to the leaves inside is less common. Usually that is kept to the absolute minimum required to make the leaves palatable. That is one reason that pipe tobacco has a stronger taste. Pipe tobaccos go through topping, fire curing, flue curing, steaming, pressing, stoving, and a number of other treatments to make the flavors more present and more bold. Cigar processing tends to go in the opposite direction. Tobacco used for the filler is very often air cured in barns with slat sides or open doors and no extra heat. It is going to give a much different flavor pressence than a tobacco that has been sprayed with sugar water and then dried with propane heat before being thrown in a giant clothes drier and steamed.
It is two different world views that give us two very different tastes. Both don't necessarily work for everybody. For me, the both provide amazing results.
I forgot to mention that cigar tobacco usually goes through a fermentation process that pipe tobacco doesn't. Well with the exception of Perique. Even then the process is different.
Last edited:
n the bright side,during the last month that they have been sitting,they are now taking on their own smells and seem quite different from each other,so that's promising.
