Formats, to scale
A cigar's format — its vitola — is just its length and its ring gauge, and those two numbers decide how long it burns and how the smoke tastes as it goes. Every shape below is drawn against the same scale, longest first.
- Lancero192 × 15.1 mm25
Long and very slim, and the format most rollers regard as the hardest to make well. Often finished with a twisted pigtail cap rather than a cut one.
- Churchill178 × 18.7 mm36
A long cigar of moderate thickness, named after Winston Churchill, who smoked them. Reckon on an hour and a half, which makes it an after-dinner size rather than an afternoon one.
- Piramide156 mm33
A cigar with a tapered head rather than a straight one. The taper is harder to roll well, which is why figurado shapes are usually made by more experienced rollers.
- Gordo152 × 23.8 mm51
The thickest format we stock, and a New World invention rather than a Cuban one. Very wide cigars hold a lot of filler, which lets a blender use more leaf varieties in one cigar.
- Toro150 × 20.6 mm68
A robusto's thickness with more length, which buys roughly another twenty minutes. The extra time is the point: a blend that shifts as it burns has room to do so.
- Corona142 × 16.7 mm28
The traditional benchmark, and the size against which the others were historically described. Slimmer than a robusto and a little longer, at around three quarters of an hour.
- Robusto124 × 19.8 mm185
The default modern cigar, and the most common size in almost any shop. Thick enough to show what a blend is doing, short enough to finish in under an hour. If you are unsure where to start, start here.
- Petit Corona110 × 15.9 mm44
A short, slim cigar of about half an hour. Worth reaching for when you genuinely have half an hour, rather than lighting something larger and abandoning it.
- Cigarillo100 × 9.9 mm15
The shortest thing we stock, finished in ten to twenty minutes. The format people reach for when the occasion is short rather than ceremonial.