Sheffield has more cigar credentials than most people in the city realise. We are home to one of only a handful of official La Casa del Habano lounges in the whole country, and a small handful of specialist merchants who actually know their stuff. Here is what you need to know before you light your first one.
Picking your first cigar: keep it simple
The cigar world can sound forbidding from the outside. Ring gauge, vitola, ligero, capa. You can park all of that. Three questions cover almost every first decision.
Where is it from? Cuban cigars carry the romance and tend to be earthy and complex. Dominicans are usually softer and a kinder place to start. Nicaraguans are richer, often peppery, and reward a more confident palate. If you want a safe first try, ask for a Romeo y Julieta Petit Corona or a Montecristo No. 4. Both are Cuban, both forgiving, both genuinely classic.
What shape? A robusto is short, sturdy and lasts about 45 minutes. A corona is slimmer, more elegant and slower. Anything longer than that is a commitment of well over an hour, so leave it until you know you enjoy the format.
How strong? Mild to medium for a first cigar. Strong cigars are not a test of character, and pushing through one that is too much for your palate is the fastest way to put yourself off the whole business.
Cut, light, smoke: the bits people get wrong
Cutting matters. A clean, single cut just above the cap of the cigar is all you need. Cutting too deep unravels the wrapper, which ruins the draw. A proper guillotine cutter is worth the small spend; nail scissors and pocket knives are not.
Lighting matters more. Toast the foot of the cigar over the flame without letting them touch, then draw gently while rotating. Use a long match or a soft butane flame, not a petrol lighter. A petrol lighter leaves a chemical taste that lingers for the entire cigar.
Once it is going, do not inhale. A cigar is held in the mouth, savoured and released. You also do not need to flick the ash every two minutes; a long, steady ash is a sign of good construction. And if it goes out, that is fine. Tap the ash off and relight the same way you started.
Where you can legally smoke a cigar in the UK
This trips up almost everyone. The 2007 Health Act bans smoking in all enclosed public places in the UK, which includes pubs, restaurants and offices. Outdoors is fine. Beer gardens, terraces, pavement seating, your own back garden. A proposal to ban smoking in outdoor pub gardens was floated as part of the recent Tobacco and Vapes Act and then dropped, so for now, outdoor remains legal.
The one indoor exemption that matters for cigars is the “specialist tobacconist sampling” provision. Licensed specialist cigar merchants can offer a dedicated indoor space where customers sample what they buy. That is the legal basis for every proper cigar lounge in the country, from the Lanesborough and the Ritz in London down to the regional specialists.
That exemption is currently under political pressure. The Tobacco and Vapes Act, now passed, tightens rules around tobacco generally, and the cigar industry has been openly worried that the sampling exemption could be the next target. As of now, it still holds.
Sheffield’s cigar scene, honestly
For a long time the assumption was that proper cigar culture in this country stopped at the M25. That has shifted. In 2025, Mitchells of Sheffield, the wine and spirits merchant that has been running on Meadowhead since the 1930s, opened the first official La Casa del Habano in Yorkshire. Casa del Habano is the global retail network licensed directly by Habanos S.A. in Cuba, with strict requirements on storage, ventilation and provenance. Getting that licence is not easy. The Sheffield store has a purpose-built walk-in humidor lined in cedar, a sealed ventilation system, and the lockers regulars use to store their own cigars.
Beyond Mitchells, the city has Cubana in Leopold Square, where cigars sit quietly alongside tapas and live Latin music, and La Di Da out in Chapeltown, which has long carried a specialist wine, whisky and cigar range. None of this is hidden, exactly, but it is genuinely under-talked-about for a city of Sheffield’s size.
Buying online: what to actually look for
Plenty of people prefer to build their first humidor from home rather than walking cold into a specialist shop. That is fair. The catch is that the cigar market online is awash with counterfeits, particularly of the big Cuban names. Cohiba, Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta are the most faked products in the entire premium tobacco industry. A fake cigar at best disappoints, and at worst miseducates your palate for years.
Three things to check before ordering from any UK site. First, do they sell genuinely traceable stock, ideally with a stated relationship with Hunters & Frankau (the only official Habanos importer in the UK) for Cuban product. Second, do they store everything in proper humidor conditions, not in a warehouse next to lawnmowers. Third, do they actually answer questions about what to choose. If the site reads like a supermarket, walk away.
UK specialists such as Mr Cigar Shop tick those boxes and tend to be a sensible starting point for anyone building a first selection without a long trip into the city. As the team there put it, “most people who get put off cigars early on were not put off by cigars; they were put off by a bad one, often a counterfeit, smoked in a rush. A good first cigar should be mild, properly stored, and given time.” Which, for a beginner, is pretty much the whole shortcut.
One last thing
A cigar is not a test, a status object, or a thing to power through. It is an hour of your evening, ideally outside, ideally with a decent drink in your other hand. Get the first one right, and the rest tends to look after itself.
