Field Stogies: Keeping Cigars Safe On The Hunt

A Few Tips For Packing Your Favorite Cigars In The Field.

Few things are more satisfying than a nice cigar. Particularly after the time and effort sunk into a hunt — the early mornings, the long hours of waiting, finding your quarry, and dropping it efficiently. The exhilaration of a successful take or the frustration of coming up empty-handed are both equally good occasions to light up your favorite stick.

Of course, like everything else you take into the field with you, cigars must be packaged and preserved in a way that keeps them safe from weather, water, long hikes, trips to the tree stand, and changing temperatures throughout the day or days. We’ve seen people simply roll up a few cigars in a sandwich bag with a damp paper towel and hope for the best. But hope is not a plan, and it behooves the aficionado to make sure their favorite smoke is ready to light when needed, whether in celebration or consolation.

Anybody who’s enjoyed a cigar in less-than-ideal conditions will tell you it’s a labor of love. Trying to nurse one back to health after it’s been water-damaged or dried out is nothing short of a royal pain in the ass. So as an alternative to jamming a few smokes into the bottom of a pack, we looked for a few examples of dedicated, hard use humidors. Two of the three cases shown are, literally, battle-tested. They’ve survived multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan during the author’s previous lifetimes.

On the low-end are the snap-shut boxes, commonly available from places like Thompson Cigar Co. and Xikar. They usually look like shrunk-down, hard plastic shoeboxes with simple clasps to keep them closed. Some models include a small sponge in the lid to soak with water before leaving on a trip to maintain moisture. In our experience these sponges aren’t a great solution. They typically need frequent re-wetting, depending on ambient climate and how often the box is dipped into.

One step up from these are the beefier, Pelican-style cases that provide additional bump and crush protection with more durable latches. Some even include a place for locks or zip ties during long trips. They’re especially good for air travel, if you’re flying to your hunt location. The example here doesn’t include a moisture sponge, but does have a screw-valve for ventilation. In humid or wet hunting grounds, leaving this valve open may help maintain moisture. But if you’re hunting in the heat, or a high-desert area, we recommend keeping the valve tightly closed and dropping a moisture stick or packet into the humidor.

A company called Boveda offers small paper-bag-style moisture packets that last for weeks and are rated for a variety of humidity conditions. (We default to the 69-percent humidity packets, but you can get them with higher and lower ratings. If you stick to a particular brand or label, finding the manufacturer’s recommendations might be worth the time. Or simply talk to the counter jockey at your local smoke shop.)

At the high end of protection and storage are humidors made from repurposed military ammunition cans. These stamped-steel canisters are nearly ubiquitous in the shooting community and have been used to store everything from cleaning supplies to loose rounds to pistols. Our example is produced by Combat Humidors, though there are several companies out there specializing in this particular ammo can modification. When shopping around, make sure your vendor washes and bleaches the can, and that the can is either lined with cedar planks, or includes trays. This will not only help preserve humidity but also ensure your cigars don’t taste like cordite when it comes time to light up. A standard 7.62mm ammo can, properly converted, holds 15-20 cigars, including either a moisture stick or humidity gauge — or both. They can also be repainted and personalized as seen here.

Regardless of where you go or what you hunt, a smooth cigar after a kill can help round out that field time you’ve been looking forward to all year.

Smoke Notes: Drew Estate Liga Privada No. 9

The smokes you see here are the Liga Privada No. 9 from Drew Estate. Well-known for their unique take on flavor-infused cigars, most notably the ACID and Tabak Especial lines, DE is no slouch in the conventional arena either. Meaning “Private Blend,” the Liga Privada series is birthed from Cuban-seed tobacco harvested from Honduras and Nicaragua.

The wrapper is aged for 18 months before rolling and the complete sticks are aged for a year or more before being packaged for sale. The body is rated as medium-full, although we think it leans more toward full. The smoke is dense and leathery, with a smooth earthy flavor punctuated with espresso notes. We get very little spice out of this one.

It’s an excellent pair with strongly flavored meats. We’ve paired it with the likes of Black Bear and Zebra. Toro-sized sticks typically retail for around $20 each. It’s definitely not a daily smoker, but makes an excellent choice for special occasions and game-heavy dinners.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Carnivore Magazine Issue 3.

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