Understanding cigar pairings: coffee, spirits and the glass

Ask how to pair a drink with a cigar and the usual answer is to match the body of one to the body of the other. It rests on less than it sounds like: the advice comes from writers and trainers, not experiments, and most research on glass shape is about wine.

The usual rule: match the body

Jack Bettridge’s Whisky Advocate guide calls this the cardinal rule. His 2002 Cigar Aficionado article gives the reasoning: a big cigar heats up the finish of a light spirit, and a full-bodied spirit overwhelms a light cigar. Tobacconist University, which trains and certifies tobacconists, calls matching body and flavor intensity a useful starting point.

Even the rule’s supporters limit it. Bettridge says in both articles that it avoids mistakes better than it finds great pairings, and his 2002 piece reports a big cigar that worked with a light whiskey, and the reverse.

This agreement is thinner than it looks. Those two articles share an author and a publisher, and Tobacconist University’s pairing pages cite no studies. The research for this piece did not find a controlled study of cigars with coffee or spirits.

Similar flavors and contrast

Beyond body, Tobacconist University describes two approaches. Like pairing brings related characteristics together, such as a cigar with cocoa and roasted notes alongside coffee or chocolate. Contrast pairing combines different ones. Cigar Aficionado’s 2002 example is a spicy, salty cigar with a sweeter spirit, and Whisky Advocate says bitter and sour notes need sweet and savory ones to temper them.

Coffee

These sources say less about coffee than about spirits. Tobacconist University calls coffee and cigars one of the most natural combinations and lists lighter coffees among the drinks for light-bodied cigars. It gives no rule for dark roasts. Pairing a richer coffee with a fuller cigar would extend the body rule, but that is this piece’s reading, not the page’s.

Cigar Aficionado’s 2019 list of cigars for morning coffee starts from the time of day instead. David Savona and Andrew Nagy wanted flavorful cigars that are not too strong, and they say firing up one big cigar first thing might seem like overkill. Where the list mentions body, it says mild to medium. So the two approaches can pull apart: the body rule might send a strong coffee toward a fuller cigar, while the morning list leans milder.

Spirits

Bettridge’s 2002 article restricts itself to whiskey, aged rum and brandy, saying years in oak give brown spirits flavors that suit most cigars. His Whisky Advocate guide adds general directions:

Spirit	What the guide suggests
Bourbon	The “universal donor”; brings sweetness to stronger cigars
Irish whiskey	Mild to medium cigars, or one with a coffee note
Brandy	Subtle brandies with milder cigars, older nutty cognacs with stronger ones
Aged rum	Much like bourbon, but with pitfalls

These are one writer’s generalizations, not test results.

My own view is simpler: I believe bourbon is an excellent pairing with a cigar. That is an opinion, not a finding, and I have an interest to declare, because I own and operate BourbonProof.com, a bourbon site. I recently bought a bottle of Saints Alley Herald 10 Year Cigar Blend from Ironroot Republic in Denison, Texas, which the distillery describes as a blend of 10-to-14-year-old bourbons designed to complement medium to full strength cigars. I haven’t opened it yet, so I can’t say how it pairs. I have paired cigars with Garrison Brothers bourbon, and that was great too, though that’s my own experience, not a test.

What the glass is claimed to do

Bettridge’s 2002 article says most connoisseurs prefer a smaller tulip glass to a huge snifter because it concentrates the aroma. It offers no test of this.

A 2017 review by Charles Spence of Oxford and George Van Doorn separates two questions. Measurements show that glass shape changes the chemical makeup of the air above a wine. That does not guarantee a difference anyone can perceive.

Wine tests of the second question disagree. VinePair reports that a 2002 study by Jeannine Delwiche and Marcia Pelchat gave tasters the same wine in four glasses, with goggles blocking their view, and found no significant difference for most attributes. The original paper could not be read for this piece. The review describes a 2003 study in which 181 people rated wine aromas as fruitier from a rounded glass than from a straight-sided one.

For spirits, this research found one comparison: a 2019 slide report from Sensation Research, a sensory research firm. Seven panelists sniffed Scotch, Cognac and tequila in a commercial flared-rim glass, a tulip whisky glass and a 5.5-ounce snifter. These are its Scotch scores on a 150-point scale, where higher means stronger:

Glass	Ethanol aroma
Flared rim	18.1
Tulip	38.7
Snifter	51.3

Ethanol aroma followed that order for all three spirits. The tulip scored above the snifter on overall aroma for Cognac and tequila, but the two were not significantly different for Scotch. So the tulip claim gets partial support, from one source.

The limits matter. The report says it was independently designed and conducted, but not who paid for it, and it is not a journal paper. The tulip was lifted to the nose while the other two stayed on the desk. It measured aroma only, by sniffing, and included no rocks glass.

The review also describes a study in which only the outside texture of a cup holder changed, for a bitter coffee and a sweet chocolate drink. Among 160 people, bitterness ratings ran about 27 percent higher with an angular surface, and sweetness ratings about 18 percent higher with a rounded one. Since only the outside changed, the authors rule out aroma chemistry for that result. They suggest shape may prime expectations, say the science is not settled, and warn of “unsubstantiated marketing hype” in this area.

How much of this is preference

On these sources, quite a lot, though nobody has put a number on it. Tobacconist University says there are no absolute rules and that taste is subjective. It adds that mood and experience influence what we enjoy, and that descriptions and reputation shape expectations before anything is tasted. The review points the same way: people tend to rate a drink more favorably in a vessel they consider right for it.

Magazine verdicts read more firmly, but they are judgments too. Cigar Aficionado’s morning list calls one cigar the perfect partner for espresso, and Bettridge’s 2002 article describes no tasting method or panel.

Where that leaves a beginner

• Start with body and flavor intensity, as a way to avoid a mismatch, not a route to a great pairing.
• With coffee, lighter coffee with a lighter cigar is the one stated match.
• Treat glass shape as an open question. A tulip has some support over a snifter for spirits, from one report. Nothing here shows a rocks glass is better or worse, because nothing here tested one.
• Keep notes on what you actually notice.