Case, Cutter, Flame: Building a Travel Set

A cigar is a fragile thing to carry. It bruises, it dries, it picks up the smell of whatever it is stored beside, and once lit it cannot be put out and relit without losing something. The people who enjoy cigars away from home most are not the ones with the most equipment but the ones with the right three objects, chosen so that they fit together and never get left behind. This is a guide to assembling that set, with Jemar at the centre of it.

The case comes first

Everything else follows from the case, because the case determines which cigars come with you and in what condition they arrive. Choose it by the cigars you smoke — ring gauge first, then length, as we describe in another story here — and by the way you travel. A jacket pocket wants a slim two-cigar body in Classic or Oscaria. A bag or a golf cart is harder on leather and better served by Bull Shoulder, which forgives scuffs. A long weekend justifies the four- or five-cigar bodies, or the twin-tube 606/4 if you like to carry two formats.

Load the case from the humidor the morning you leave, not the night before a long trip. A Jemar tube will keep a properly humidified cigar in smoking condition for a day or two without help; beyond that, a small Boveda pack in the same bag — not in the case — keeps the air around it right. And return anything unsmoked to the humidor when you get home. The case is for carrying, not keeping.

The cutter

A cutter is the one tool where more money does not always buy more usefulness. What matters is a blade that is sharp, an opening that suits your ring gauge, and a form that survives a pocket. A double-blade guillotine handles almost everything up to a 60 ring and cuts cleanly from both sides; a V-cutter gives a deeper draw on thicker cigars and suits people who prefer a narrower opening; a punch is the smallest to carry and the least forgiving of a soft head.

Whatever you choose, keep it in the same pocket as the case, or clipped to the bag beside it. The most common way to end up with a cigar and no way to cut it is to keep the cutter in the humidor at home. A second, inexpensive guillotine that lives permanently with the travel case solves this for good.

The flame

This is the part of the set most people get wrong, because they choose a lighter for how it looks rather than for where they will use it. There are two kinds of flame, and each has a place.

A soft flame — the yellow, wavering flame of a classic petrol or butane lighter — lights a cigar gently and evenly, flatters the flavour of the first draws, and carries the sense of occasion that a good cigar deserves. It is the flame for a table, a terrace out of the wind, a study. S.T. Dupont's Ligne 2, with its famous ring as the cap opens, is the reference here and pairs naturally with a Jemar Classic case for an evening out.

A torch flame — the blue, roaring jet — lights faster, is unaffected by wind, and toasts the foot of a thick cigar evenly in seconds. It is the flame for the golf course, the boat, the patio in April. Several S.T. Dupont models offer a torch, and some offer both flames in one body, which is the simplest answer for someone who wants to carry only one lighter.

Many of our customers settle on two: a Ligne 2 for dinner and a slimmer or torch model for outdoors. That is not extravagance; it is the same logic as owning a dress shoe and a walking shoe.

Fitting the three together

A well-assembled set has a place for each piece. Case in one pocket, cutter and lighter together in another, or all three in a small leather roll or the outside pocket of a bag. Avoid putting the cutter and lighter in the same pocket as the case unless the case is Bull Shoulder — hard metal against smooth Classic leather will score it over time. And match the finishes if it pleases you: a black Classic case with a black-lacquer Ligne 2 and a plain steel cutter is a set that reads as considered without shouting about it.

The fourth object

For trips longer than a weekend, add a Boveda 69% pack to the luggage. It weighs nothing, costs little and keeps the air around the case at the right level when a hotel room is running dry. A small zip bag holding the case and the pack together does the job of a travel humidor for most people, and takes up a fraction of the space.

El Laguito Cigars carries Jemar, S.T. Dupont and Boveda as an authorized retailer, which is a convenient way of saying that the whole set is in one place. Tell us how you travel and what you smoke, and we will put the three pieces together — in Mississauga or by post anywhere in Canada.