Robusto or Toro: the fifteen minutes between them
Same diameter, different endings. The choice is about the last third.
Both sit around fifty ring; the toro is simply longer. The extra inch is not more of the same — it changes where the cigar peaks and what the finish feels like.
The numbers
A robusto is roughly 5 inches by 50, a toro roughly 6 by 52. In practice that is about forty-five minutes against an hour and a quarter, though pace matters more than either figure.
What the length does
A robusto reaches its middle quickly and often finishes at its best point. A toro has room for a proper three-act structure: the middle stretches, and blends built for it develop something in the final third that a robusto never gets to show.
The reverse risk is real too. A blend without much to say gets boring in a toro, and the last third of a mediocre one is where you notice you are still smoking.
Strength accumulates
Nicotine delivery is cumulative, so the same blend in a toro hits harder simply because there is more of it. If a robusto sits at your comfortable limit, the toro of the same cigar will not.
Do this: if you are trying a brand for the first time, buy the robusto. It is the format most blends are designed around, and it costs you less time and money to find out you dislike it.
Choosing between them tonight
- Under an hour, or before dinner: robusto.
- A long evening with a drink: toro.
- Unfamiliar blend: robusto, always.
- A blend you know develops late: toro, and give it the time.
The honest rule: choose by the time you actually have, not the time you would like to have. A cigar cut short at the halfway mark is worse value than a smaller one finished properly.
Same blend, two formats, two entries
The sommelier fills in the format when it reads the band, so a robusto and a toro of the same blend are two entries you can put side by side, each with your own score out of ten. That is the only way to settle which one you actually prefer rather than which one you assume you do.
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