Miniaturization is the thing today, not only in electronics but also in many different aspects of our daily lives. Chocolate bars come in bite size, individually wrapped pieces; even “mini” cars are popular. Sometimes the reason behind this is economic; a smaller product can sell at a lower price and capture a larger market. Other reasons had to do with bulk and weight – remember those ancient calculators that needed a whole office desk of their own? Or the early mobile phones often laughably referred to as “brick phones”?
Why Cigars?
While miniature cigars fit the economic reason for “small is good”; there is another reason. The basic cigar is a fairly large amount of tobacco rolled into one tube that can take quite some time to smoke. This may be well and good if the smoker is relaxing in a chair for several hours enjoying his after dinner cigar but; what if he only has a few minutes to spare? This is where cigarillos (Spanish for little cigar) entered the picture and became the main source of enjoyment for someone wishing the taste of smoking a cigar; but lacking the time to finish a full size cigar.
Cigarillo Or Little Cigar
Basically, the words say the same thing but, at least in the US, they have taken on different meanings. This is partly due to anti-smoking legislation and taxation. Cigarettes were the main target of the health and environment lobbies and a major source of tax income. One way or another, cigars sort of slipped below the radar and were not so heavily penalized as cigarettes. The traditional cigarillo is very much a miniature version of its big brother and is, ideally handmade. With a growing demand for small cigars, it made sense to automate their production and bring costs down. The term “little cigar” usually applies to the machine made version which often substitutes a paper wrapper for the cigar’s tobacco leaf wrapper.
Health Precautions
Rightly or wrongly, cigarette smokers have almost universally adopted the safety feature of a filter; once small cigars became machine made, it was both easy and sound marketing to make Filtered Little Cigars. The smoking public who like the convenience of cigarettes but really prefer the taste and flavor of cigars are turning to Filtered Little Cigars as their choice of “smokes”. Demand is such that you can now even buy them online.
