Do cigars go bad?

How long do cigars last in a humidor?

For years, if the humidor holds steady. Tobacco takes on and gives off moisture as the air around it changes, so what keeps a cigar good is conditions that stay put. A small drift is normal. Big or fast swings in humidity or temperature are what wear a cigar down.

Kept that way, cigars can keep changing slowly over months, years and even decades. That slow change is what people mean by aging.

For the numbers to hold at home, and why, see the right humidity for cigars.

Out of a humidor, with no humidity source, cigars start drying within a day; cellophane, by one pack maker's count, buys only a day or two. How long cigars last in their box or in a bag is covered in keeping cigars without a humidor.

Are old cigars still good?

They can be, if they were stored well. A properly kept cigar can go on changing for decades, and whether a 20-year-old one is still good depends on the cigar and on whether you like how it changed. A cigar that sat in a desk drawer for those years has likely dried out, and the years didn't help it.

Aging changes a cigar. The taste can get softer and more blended, spice and strength can fade, and a cigar can lose some of what made it enjoyable. There's no fixed age at which a cigar peaks. A rule of thumb from a Tobacconist University contributor in 2010: stronger, more complex blends have more potential to change with age, and milder ones are less likely to change dramatically. On our pages, strength means nicotine, the physical effect; more on that in cigar strength, body and flavor, explained.

You don't have to age anything. Premium cigars are generally ready to smoke when you buy them.

If you inherited a box, or found one in a closet, check each cigar against the signs below before you smoke one. When someone brings an old box into the shop, we tell them to start from the beginning: treat the cigars as dry and bring them back slowly (see saving a dried-out cigar, below). If they've been in your own humidor the whole time, the question is whether you like how they've changed, and the only way to find out is to smoke one.

How do you tell if a cigar has gone bad?

Look closely at the wrapper, the foot (the end you light) and the spot under the band, and feel whether the cigar is brittle or soft.

Is it mold or plume?

Plume, also called bloom, is the trade's name for a fine white powder on the wrapper of an aged cigar. A standard cigar glossary describes plume as oils from the tobacco that brush off without leaving a mark, and mold as colored and staining.

Tobacconist University, which certifies tobacconists, is more cautious. It says modern examination has challenged some of the traditional explanations, and that neither the look nor the feel of a white substance proves it's harmless plume.

Mold can be white too, or gray, green or blue, and fuzzy, woolly or powdery. It grows on the wrapper, under the band, at the foot or inside the filler. A white powder on its own doesn't tell you which one you have. If you can't tell, treat it as mold: don't smoke it, and follow the steps below.

Mold grows when there's too much moisture: humidity set too high, condensation, or a humidifier that's been neglected. It can also come from the factory, on cigars packed with too much moisture in the leaf, so a cigar can arrive moldy even when your humidor is fine. Look over new cigars before they go in with the rest.

What to do with a moldy cigar

Don't smoke it. Throw it out. Brushing off what you can see may not remove what's in the tobacco, and there's no reliable way to restore a moldy cigar. Then clean the humidor:

1. Take everything out and look over the other cigars. Set aside any that look suspect.
2. Wipe the inside with 70% isopropyl alcohol on a clean cloth. Use it sparingly on Spanish cedar, and never pour it on the wood.
3. Leave the humidor open in a well-ventilated spot until it's completely dry and the alcohol smell is gone. Keep it away from flames.
4. Fix the cause: humidity set too high, condensation or a dirty humidifier.
5. Return the clean cigars only once the humidor is clean, dry and holding steady humidity.

Keep watching for the mold to come back. Cleaning the surface may not reach mold that's deep in the wood or widespread, and Tobacconist University says the affected wooden parts may then need replacing.

What are tobacco beetles?

The tobacco beetle, Lasioderma serricorne, also called the cigarette or cigar beetle, is a reddish-brown beetle about 2 to 3 mm long. It's the most damaging pest of stored tobacco. The larvae do the harm. They hatch in the tobacco and eat their way through it.

Factories fumigate their tobacco and sometimes freeze it, but some beetles survive, so a box can bring them in without anyone knowing. Heat speeds them up. A 2000 cigar-magazine article put hatching above about 72°F and 72% humidity, and the same magazine's glossary above about 72°F, while university extension entomologists at Purdue and the University of Florida report beetles still developing at 68°F, just more slowly. Our shop aims for about 65°F.

The eggs hatch in about 6 to 10 days in warm conditions and up to about three weeks at 68°F. The larvae then feed for five to ten weeks before they pupate. By the time you see a beetle in the box, much of the damage may already be done. Most of the prevention is keeping the humidor cool and out of direct sun, and checking new boxes before they go in.

Signs of beetles

• A neat, round pinhole in a wrapper
• Little tunnels through the tobacco
• Brown, sandlike tobacco dust in the box or on the shelf, which is the beetles' droppings
• Holes through cellophane
• Damage on several cigars in the same box

Beetles get through boxes, cellophane, thin plastic and cedar. If you find one damaged cigar, treat every cigar near it as exposed.

How to get rid of them

Freeze them:

1. Seal the cigars in airtight plastic bags. Do it for every cigar in that humidor, damaged or not.
2. Freeze them at about 0°F or colder for at least 72 hours after they reach freezer temperature. A full box takes time to cool all the way through, so 5 to 7 days gives you a margin.
3. Move them, still sealed, to the refrigerator for at least a day, then let them come up to room temperature still sealed. The slow thaw limits condensation and keeps the wrappers from splitting.
4. While they're out, check the empty humidor, its shelves, any boxes and the area around it for tobacco dust and beetles, and clear out any you find.
5. Put the cigars back once they're at room temperature.

Older advice, from 2000, called for three days in the freezer and one in the refrigerator.

Then fix what let them hatch, usually a humidor that ran too warm or too moist. A digital hygrometer with a thermometer shows you both. The freezer is for treating beetles. Neither it nor the fridge is a place to store cigars.

Can you save a dried-out cigar?

Sometimes, if it's only moderately dry. One that dried out badly, or stayed dry a long time, may never return to how it was. There's no single humidity reading where a cigar is suddenly dead. How dry it got, and for how long, decides it.

The method is slow:

1. Put the dry cigars in your humidor at the outer corners, away from the humidifier.
2. Over several weeks, move them gradually toward the center.

If a dry cigar takes on moisture too fast, the outer leaves swell before the inside catches up, and the cigar can crack or split. That's why the quick fixes don't work: a steamy shower, a steam room, the dishwasher.

The same rule works in reverse. A cigar that's too wet should be dried slowly, not set out in dry air to force the moisture out.