The Framework
The Cigarro Method.
A cigar tells three stories. A review should capture all three.
Most reviews collapse a cigar into one number. Ninety-two. Eighty-eight. As if the cedar at the foot has anything to say about the leather at the band. It doesn’t.
A cigar built well will move through three distinct phases, and the difference between the first inch and the final inch is often the whole point. The Cigarro Method captures the cigar in motion, not in summary.
Strength and draw at each third. Dedicated notes per phase. A thirteen-family flavour wheel tuned for tobacco, not wine.
It’s the framework at the heart of the app, and the framework Hugh writes from each week in The Weekly Ember.
Section I
Three thirds. One verdict.
A cigar smoked properly takes between forty-five and ninety minutes. The Method splits that journey into three roughly equal phases and runs the same battery at each: nine sliders for performance and flavour balance, four chips for construction and behaviour, and a thirteen-family flavour wheel. The answers compound. The cigar reveals itself.
How does it land?
Heat builds. Bitterness, harshness, and retrohale climb. The wrapper darkens its expression. A great final third deepens; a poor one collapses into char. Both are real data.
Where does it shift?
Strength typically steps up. Drawn flavours emerge: leather, dark chocolate, espresso, sweet baking spice. Bitterness, savouriness, and spice often appear here. The middle is where a cigar tells the truth.
What's it announcing?
The opening posture. Strength entry, body, mouthfeel, retrohale. Lead flavours. Construction tells: burn line, draw, smoke output.
Section II
Nine sliders. Four chips. Three times.
The Method captures nine sliders and four construction chips at each third. Strength, body, mouthfeel, retrohale. Sweetness, savouriness, bitterness, spice, harshness. Burn line, correction, draw, smoke output. Forty-plus structured data points across the cigar’s life. The result is not a number; it’s a shape.
Section III
Thirteen families. One vocabulary.
Tea masters and sommeliers built theirs centuries ago. Tobacco deserves its own. The Cigarro flavour wheel has thirteen families, each with its own children. Tap a family during a review and the children appear. Log what you actually taste. The wheel charts your habits over time.
Section IV
Three windows into the same cigar.
The numbers tell you the shape. The notes tell you the story. Each third has its own dedicated text field. Write what the smoke called to mind, what the room smelled like, what changed when the band warmed. We keep them separate on purpose. Compressed into one block, the texture flattens. Kept apart, you can return to a cigar a year later and remember exactly when it shifted.
Section V
What it becomes.
When you finish a Method review, the app assembles it. The cigar, the wrapper, the size. Three columns of per-third data: nine sliders, four chips, the flavours you tagged. A final rating, an overall reflection, the time it took. You can keep it private, or share it to the community feed. Either way, you have a record that means something.
Section VI
One number isn't a review.
We’re not against ratings. We’re against ratings as the only artefact. A 92 tells you almost nothing about whether the band was worth reaching. The Method is built for the enthusiast who wants to remember why, not just whether.
Section VII
How to start.
You don’t need to memorise anything. The app walks you through it. Most first reviews take fifteen seconds at the foot, fifteen seconds at the band, and a minute or two of typing in the middle. Practice tightens the writing; the framework stays the same.
Questions
In short.
What is The Cigarro Method?
The Cigarro Method is a review-by-thirds framework for cigars: strength and draw measured at the first, middle, and final third, dedicated notes per phase, and a thirteen-family flavour wheel for tagging what you taste. It’s the structured framework at the heart of the Cigarro app.
Why review by thirds?
A cigar in motion is not a cigar at rest. Strength climbs, draw shifts, flavours emerge and recede. A single rating at the end averages over the whole journey and loses the texture. Three readings preserve the arc.
How long does a Method review take?
The structured inputs (sliders, flavour chips, timestamps) take about thirty seconds total per third. The notes take as long as you want them to. Most full reviews land between three and seven minutes of active typing across an hour-long sit.
Do I have to write three notes?
No. The strength and draw sliders alone produce a usable review. Notes are encouraged because they make the cigar memorable a year later, but the framework works at whatever depth suits the moment.
Can I share my Method reviews?
Each review can be set to public or private at save time. Public reviews appear on your profile and in the community feed; private ones live only in your own log.
Is the Method overkill for a casual enthusiast?
No. Most enthusiasts anchor on three or four sliders that matter to them (commonly Strength, Body, Spice, and Harshness) and leave the rest at their defaults. The framework supports the full depth for those who want it; it doesn’t demand it. Save what you saw, leave the rest.
Try the Method tonight
Light something. We'll keep the record.
Cigarro is free for your first thirty cigars. The Method is in there waiting.