Retrohaling is the technique of exhaling a portion of cigar smoke through the nose rather than the mouth. The smoke passes through the retronasal passage that joins the back of the mouth to the nasal cavity, where it meets the olfactory receptors that perform most of what we loosely call tasting. It is the single habit that separates a casual smoker from an attentive one.
The biology is the reason. The tongue identifies only five basic tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami. The several hundred olfactory receptors in the nose identify thousands of distinct aromas. When you eat a strawberry, the sweetness comes from the tongue, but the unmistakable strawberry-ness comes from the nose. Cigar smoke behaves the same way. Without the retrohale you are reading a fraction of what the cigar is doing; with it, you are reading most of it.
The method takes practice. Draw smoke into your mouth as usual, never into the lungs. Close your mouth and push a small portion of the smoke gently up and out through your nose, almost as if you were yawning with your lips shut. Do not force it. A small volume produces the full effect, and a hard push only stings. New smokers often cough or feel a sharp note on the first few attempts. This is normal and fades within a cigar or two.
Begin the retrohale in the second third rather than the first. The opening inch is often the harshest part of a cigar, and a fresh palate meeting sharp smoke through the nose is the quickest way to put yourself off the technique for good. By the middle third the smoke has settled, the flavours have arrived, and the retrohale repays you with cedar, leather, baking spice, and the sweetness of the wrapper in a way the mouth alone never shows.
Once it becomes second nature, retrohaling changes how you review. It is where the spice, the florals, and the finer sweetness of a cigar register, which is why strength, retrohale, and the flavour notes each sit on their own slider in the Cigarro Method. The first cigar you retrohale properly will reveal notes you did not know it held. The next will read pale if you forget. For more on how the cigar is built, see The Anatomy of a Cigar.
