Learning the obvious

Ever wonder what happens to leaves that are intended for wrapper but are somehow imperfect?

Okay, maybe you didn't, but I did.

I knew they couldn't all go to Mike's Old Fashioned Chicos. (Nice tasting little cigars at a good price, but the wrappers are usually wrinkled and ugly, sometimes even patched.) And I couldn't imagine that they were simply composted and returned to the soil -- some maybe, but not all of them.

While browsing the Cigar Advisor website I learned something that I halfway suspected all along, but didn't know for certain: flawed wrapper leaves are sorted out and used in filler. These are leaves that taste as good as "perfect" wrappers, but they may have uneven coloration, or tiny holes, or too-prominent veins, or something else that makes them unsuitable for wrapping fine cigars.

Most of us already know that much (I've read as much as 60 percent) of a cigar's flavor comes from the wrapper, and that filler leaves are selected in large part for body, nicotine-strength and burn characteristics. Binder leaves have to be a bit stronger than wrapper and filler leaves since they hold the filler bunch together. So we actually have three very different classes of leaves, right?

Well, not exactly. While some leaves are selected for the filler because of the particular characteristics I mentioned above, obviously they (and the binder) also contribute to overall flavor. Once you have seen to the body, strength and burn characteristics you want a cigar to have, there is still the matter of actual flavor ... and while the wrapper contributes a lot of the cigar's flavor, it doesn't account for all of it.

Put another way: I happen to like the taste of milder-bodied cigars with Connecticut Shade wrappers. A cigar that includes Connecticut Shade leaves in the filler as well as the wrapper is going to have more of that particular leaf's strength, body and flavor than one that doesn't use Connecticut Shade in the filler. Makes sense, right?

So now I know ... and you do too, if you didn't already know it. It's a matter of "waste not, want not". You might not find milder leaves of any sort going into a Cohiba, for example, but you probably will find mild "imperfect" wrapper leaves being used in the filler of a Macanudo. For all I know, most of the filler in Macs may be imperfect Connecticut Shade or something similarly mild, originally intended to be wrapper leaves but simply not pretty enough to put on the outside. And even if they aren't your favorites, you have to admit that Macanudos are well-made, highly consistent cigars that always look beautiful. (On the outside, at least. I've never opened one up to inspect the fillers.)

If the leaf is of good enough quality it's used as binder. It's only if it doesn't make that grade it becomes filler. Other than minor imperfections there's really not much of a difference between wrapper and binder leaf.