Cigarillos in Morocco: Choosing a Packet and Smoking It Well

The cigarillo is the unloved member of the cigar world: too small for purists, too expensive for anyone coming from cigarettes. In Morocco, though, it is the cleverest format on the official price list, and the only one through which an aficionado can smoke a great brand without spending a day’s wages. This guide sets out the approved families of cigarillos, how to choose a packet, and how to smoke it.

For the official price list, see cigar prices in Morocco. The Cohiba range, Mini, Club, Short and Wide Short included, is covered in Cohiba prices in Morocco.

What a cigarillo actually is

The distinction is not merely one of size. A cigarillo measures 6 to 10 cm with a slim ring gauge, smokes in ten to twenty minutes, and almost always comes off a machine: a frequently reconstituted binder, a sometimes homogenised wrapper, a filter on certain lines. A cigar is longer, thicker, hand-rolled at the great brands, and asks for thirty minutes to two hours; our glossary details that anatomy.

Moroccan law records the difference formally: the customs price list gives cigarillos a separate section from cigars, and the traveller’s allowance counts them apart, a hundred against twenty-five. In other words, this is not a small cigar, it is a category of its own.

The four families of cigarillos

The popular entry level: Dux, Ducados, Farias, Primeros, Fleur de Savane, Black Lemon. The everyday cigarillo, plain and unpretentious, often flavoured.

The European classics: Café Crème, Panter, Neos, Mehari’s, Vega Fina. Dutch and Belgian houses that made the format, with or without filters, in mild and consistent blends. This is the best quality-to-price ratio on the list.

The great Cuban brands: Quintero, Romeo y Julieta, Partagas, Montecristo and Cohiba, in Mini, Club, Short and Wide Short. This is the whole point of this guide: these ranges carry the same band and tobacco of the same origin as the cigars, for a fraction of the price.

The Davidoff and Zino ranges: Mini Cigarillos Silver, Club Cigarillos, Escurio, Demi Tasse. The top of the format, and the only references on the list that rival a genuine entry-level cigar; their prices are in our Davidoff prices in Morocco guide.

Why the format makes sense in Morocco

Three distinctly Moroccan reasons, beyond price.

The customs allowance is four times more generous. It admits 100 cigarillos without declaration, against 25 cigars. For the travelling aficionado it is the widest channel on the list, and the way to bring in houses absent from the official circuit; our guide to the buying channels sets out that mechanism.

The dry climate is more forgiving. A cigarillo is small, usually sold in a tin or a sealed packet, and smoked within days of purchase. It therefore asks neither for the humidor nor the managed humidity of a box of Havanas kept for months. In the Moroccan climate that tolerance counts: it spares the beginner the commonest disappointment, a cigar dried out before it was ever smoked.

The format suits the country’s rhythm. Twenty minutes is exactly the length of a mint tea on a terrace or a coffee after lunch, where a robusto demands three times as long. The cigarillo slips into an ordinary day where a cigar asks you to devote an evening to it.

Smoking one properly

The cigarillo suffers from a stubborn confusion with the cigarette, and that is what gets it misjudged. Four rules are enough:

1. Do not inhale. The smoke stays in the mouth, you taste it, you release it. This is not a purist’s precaution, it is the only way to taste anything of the tobacco at all.
2. Draw gently and space it out. A slim vitola heats fast; rushed, it turns bitter within minutes. One puff a minute is plenty.
3. Do not cut, unless told otherwise. Most cigarillos have an open head and are smoked as they come; no need for the guillotine.
4. Light it cleanly. A torch flame or a long match, never a petrol lighter, which would leave an off taste; our lighting guide applies to the small format too. And at the end, set it down and let it go out rather than stubbing it.

What a cigarillo does not replace

Let us be honest: a Cohiba Mini is not a Cohiba Robustos in miniature. The filler is not that of hand-rolled vitolas, the burn is quicker, and the aromatic development is all but absent where a great cigar shifts register three times between the first third and the last. The cigarillo is not a budget version of the cigar: it is a different use, shorter and simpler, with qualities of its own.

For anyone starting out it is also a first step: a session of some fifteen minutes lets you learn the gestures before moving up to the full format. Our beginner’s guide takes over when the appetite for the full format arrives.

Buying them in Morocco

The same rule applies as for cigars: regulated price, purchase over the counter. Cigarillos appear on the official list on the same footing as cigars and cigarettes, which means the rate is not negotiable and that a markedly cut-price packet should raise the same suspicion as a knock-down Havana. The official shops and licensed points of sale remain the safe channel; our guide to buying a cigar in Morocco sets out the channels and the addresses.

Which leaves the best advice of all, valid anywhere: start with a packet of Café Crème or Montecristo Mini before making up your mind. Take the time to compare the format and the aromatic profile to find what suits you.