The Different Methods of Rolling a Cigar

Cutting and lighting your favorite cigar is such an easy thing to do, and an all-around delight for every smoker, but have you ever thought about the process that goes into crafting a cigar? Cigar rolling is an art, and just like other art forms such as painting or sculpting, it has several techniques to it.

A cigar artist is known as a “torcedor”— which is a Cuban term for a cigar roller and translates to “one who twists”. The art form of a torcedor involves quite a bit of skill as theirs is a traditional craft. The best cigars can only be produced through handcrafting; technology might make the job easier, but it can never be able to replicate what a torcedor can roll with their hands. In Cuba, the tradition of cigar rolling has been practiced for over 2 centuries.

Thus, it is often debated that the torcedores of Cuba are the very finest in the world.

A cigar torcedor does not require much for their craft. All they need include but are not exclusive to:

A table;
A chair;
A sturdy wooden board (depending on the technique they are working with);
A special knife;
A round cutter for cutting the cap of the head of the cigar;
A guillotine;
A mold to press the semi-finished product;
Some tasteless vegetable glue; and
A gauge

Most importantly, a torcedor needs to have a lot of skill and know the recipe for every cigar rolling format—things that they can acquire and hone through years of practice and experience. This means that as long as you put in the work towards attaining expertise, anyone can be an excellent cigar torcedor.

To craft a cigar, the torcedor lays the filler leaves out in horizontal piles on the table in front of him. Then he lays out the binder, and then, at the far right of the table, the wrapper leaf. The thick central vein of the filler leaves would have already been partially taken out. Next comes the first and major step: bunching. Bunching involves taking the filler tobacco in hand to roll or shape it, and there are various methods to accomplish this.

The resulting bunch usually comprises 3 to 5 filler tobaccos and the binder rolled around them. The bunch is also actually half the work done towards getting the final product. The different methods for rolling or bunching cigar tobacco include Entubado bunching, Accordion bunching, Book bunching, Lieberman or machine bunching, and Hybrid bunching.

Before getting into the techniques, there are 3 types of tobacco leaves that you must learn:

The Ligero leaf: The upper-most part of the tobacco plant produces the Ligero leaf. This specific type of leaf takes much longer to mature than the other two types, which is why it is the most flavorsome of the three. It is a very strong, spicy leaf, which burns slowly. It is this leaf that gives the cigar its strength.
The Seco leaf: Almost every cigar smoker knows of the Seco leaf because it is the most popular type of tobacco filler. It grows from the midsection of the tobacco plant and is the thinnest of the three types. It is aromatic, spicy, and burns reasonably well. It gives the cigar the necessary balance.
The Volado leaf: This leaf is found at the bottom of the tobacco plant. It is a mild leaf, so it doesn’t have much to offer in terms of flavor, but it does have the most potent burning properties out of all three leaf types.

Entubado Bunching

This is the most classic method and the method with the highest difficulty level out of all the bunching techniques. When it first originated, only Cuban tobacco was rolled using the entubado bunching method. However, today this method is practiced worldwide with a variety of tobaccos.

The steps to perform entubado bunching are as follows:

Roll the filler leaves individually.
Place them side by side and then gather them into a bunch.
Select the Ligero leaves and position them in the middle of the filler.
Place the thin Seco leaves alongside them.
Place the final leaves—the Volado.
Depending on the format of the cigar, take 1 to 3 binder leaves and place them next to each other.
Complete this stage by wrapping the bunch with the binder leaves.

Before pressing and the final wrapping, you must ensure that the packing in each cigar is even and make sure that they roll consistently from end to end (or head to foot).

You then place all the rolled cigars into a would and leave them in there to be presold for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Once this pressing period is completed, tidy up the foot of each cigar using your guillotine. Finally, the wrapper leaf falls into the equation. Take one wrapper leaf for each cigar and wrap your perfectly handmade cigar into a finished and smoke-able product.

The wrapper must be moist and supple to ensure that it can wrap the cigar securely. You then put the final touches on the cigar by using the special knife to cut the wrapper and the round cutter to create the cap.

The pros of using this cylindrical or entubado bunching technique are that it produces cigars that give the best aromas and flavors because the filler leaves were rolled individually which will allow the smoke to pass through each and every one of them. Additionally, the painstaking process provides cigars that are more likely to give a cool, slow, and even burn. The downside, however, is the obvious difficulty level.

The entire process takes a lot of time and can therefore not be employed successfully in large-scale manufacturing. Fun fact: Women are known to have a more delicate touch; thus, the job of rolling the bunched cigar into its wrapper is usually given to them.

Accordion Bunching

Accordion bunching involves folding each filler leaf from the outside in. Then each folded leaf is placed one on top of the other until the bunching is done. Same as with entubado bunching, the bunched filler is then wrapped up in the binder leaf, pressed, and then wrapped in the wrapper leaf. The Accordion method is a preferred technique by many for its advantages.

The folding of filler leaves creates an excellent draw in each cigar. The method is also comparatively more productive than entubado bunching in terms of the number of cigars a torcedor can roll a day when using it.

Book Bunching

Book bunching is the easiest manual bunching method. To perform the book bunching technique, you lay individual filler leaves one on top of the other (like a pile of books) and simply fold them in together (like a book or a tortilla wrap). While being less complicated than the other methods, the book method does not allow as much air to flow through the cigar.

Regardless, its pros outweigh its cons as you can roll out much more cigars with this method than with the first two listed in this text, making it one of the most popular techniques for making premium cigars.

Lieberman Bunching

Also known as machine bunching, this method is named after the piece of equipment used in the process of Lieberman bunching. The Lieberman is a tool that was made to assist the roller with the bunching process. With the Lieberman, bunching takes seconds flat before the cigar is ready to be pressed in the mold.

The Lieberman has a steel frame would a rubber mat that is attached to the torcedor’s workbench. In using the Lieberman, the torcedor arranges the binder and filler leaves by hand and slides them into the machine’s groove under the rubber mat. The bunch is then rolled by manually pressing a lever. Interestingly, the Lieberman can also be used to roll cigarettes by arranging a sheet of rolling paper and cigarette tobacco into the groove.

The machine, for its speed, saves time and consistently produces evenly rolled bunches. The advantages to the Lieberman machine are that it reduces labor in bunching the cigars and increases output. However, owing to questions of whether the output from a machine can still be considered “handmade cigars”, many people regard this form of production as inferior to the other methods because the quality of being handmade is what truly defines most premium cigars.

Hybrid Bunching

Hybrid bunching is also known as gurado bunching. For creating cigars with unique shapes like torpedos and perfectos, hybrid bunching is the typical technique that is used. The reason for this is that the head of the cigar, which could either be pointed, tapered, or bulging, requires special and adept attention and a great deal of extra skill to roll perfectly. Even one incorrectly placed leaf can have a dire effect on the way the final product will smoke.

In conclusion, the most important things about cigars after they have been bunched, pressed, and wrapped to finality are the draw and flavor. All a good cigar needs are to draw well and taste phenomenal.

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