If you are only tasting your cigar on your tongue, you are missing half the blend.
The human tongue is a blunt instrument. It detects the basics: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. It tells you if a cigar is peppery or sweet, but it doesn’t give you nuance. To get the cedar, the dark cocoa, the dried cherry, the leather, and the specific terroir of the tobacco, you have to engage your olfactory system. You have to use your nose.
In the cigar world, this technique is called the retrohale.
It is arguably the single most important skill a cigar smoker can develop. It is also the one most commonly misunderstood—and most frequently done wrong, resulting in burning sinuses and watering eyes.
Here is how to properly retrohale, why it matters, and how to do it without ruining your experience.
What is a Retrohale?
A retrohale is the act of pushing a small amount of smoke from the back of your mouth up through your nasal cavity and out through your nose.
It is not inhaling. You should never draw cigar smoke into your lungs. The smoke remains in the oral cavity and is simply redirected out through the nasal passage. By passing the smoke over the olfactory receptors in your nasal cavity, you unlock the complex aromatic compounds in the tobacco that your palate alone cannot process.
How to Retrohale Without Burning Your Sinuses
The biggest mistake new smokers make when attempting to retrohale is trying to push an entire mouthful of thick, warm smoke through their nose. This will immediately burn your nasal passages, make your eyes water, and likely turn you off the technique forever.
The secret to the retrohale is volume control.
Here is the step-by-step method to get it right:
- Take a normal draw. Pull the smoke into your mouth just as you usually would.
- Exhale 80% through your mouth. This is the crucial step. Let the vast majority of the smoke escape normally.
- Close your mouth. You should now only have a very small, residual amount of smoke left at the back of your palate.
- Push the rest through your nose. Using the back of your throat, gently push that remaining 20% of smoke up into your nasal passage and exhale through your nose.
Think of it less like blowing smoke out of your nose and more like letting the aroma drift out.
Practice With the “Swallow” Technique
If you are struggling to find the physical mechanism to push smoke up into your nasal cavity, try this: Take a draw, exhale most of it, then perform the physical motion of swallowing (without actually swallowing the smoke). As your tongue rises to the roof of your mouth during the swallow, it naturally forces the air at the back of your throat up into your nasal passage.
When and How Often Should You Retrohale?
You do not need to retrohale on every puff. In fact, you shouldn’t.
Depending on the strength of the cigar (particularly Nicaraguan blends heavy on Ligero), retrohaling too often can fatigue your olfactory receptors and numb your palate.
A good rule of thumb is to retrohale once every four or five puffs.
You should also pay attention to when you are retrohaling during the lifecycle of the cigar. The retrohale is an excellent tool for tracking how a blend evolves:
- The First Third: The retrohale will often be punchy and pepper-forward as the wrapper warms up.
- The Second Third: This is where the retrohale shines. As the cigar settles into its core profile, the retrohale will reveal the deepest complexity—baking spices, wood, dried fruit, and sweetness.
- The Final Third: As the cigar heats up and tar builds up near the cap, the retrohale will become sharper and more aggressive. You will likely want to retrohale less frequently here.
The Payoff
Once you master the retrohale, the way you experience cigars will fundamentally change. Blends you previously thought were one-dimensional will suddenly reveal layers of nuance. The difference between a good cigar and a great cigar will become immediately apparent.
Start small. Remember the 80/20 rule. Let your palate and your nose work together.