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How to Cut a Cigar

Updated 2026-08-16 · by Eric

A good cut removes less than most beginners expect... a clean opening just above the shoulder, with the cap still doing its job.

Where to cut

Every handmade cigar ends in a cap... a small piece of wrapper leaf glued over the head to hold everything closed. Look closely and there's a faint seam where the cap ends, usually within the first quarter inch. The shoulder is where the rounded head straightens out into the body. The rule nearly every guide agrees on: cut above the shoulder, never below it. In practice that means taking off roughly a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch... less than it feels like it should be.

The reason is structural. The cap is the anchor holding the wrapper in place. Cut below the shoulder and the anchor is gone... the wrapper starts peeling loose in your hand, and nothing puts it back.

The three main cuts

• Guillotine. A straight cut across the head, with one blade or two. Two is better... a double blade slices from both sides at once instead of pushing the cigar against a backstop, so it tears less. The full opening gives an easy, open draw, and it works on nearly every shape. If a first cutter is the question, this is the usual answer.
• Punch. A small circular blade that twists a plug out of the cap. The cap stays mostly intact, so there's nothing to unravel, and the smaller opening gives a firmer draw... smokers commonly credit it with concentrating the smoke. The trade-offs: it can't handle pointed heads at all, it's cramped on skinny cigars, and the small hole can clog with tar on a long smoke.
• V-cut. A notched blade that takes a wedge out of the cap instead of slicing it off. The wedge reaches deep into the filler without ever crossing the shoulder, which makes it a forgiving choice on big ring gauges. Many smokers also reach for it on box-pressed cigars, where the notch lines up naturally with the flat profile... a preference, not a law.

Which cutter for which cigar

Guillotine. The default, and it should be. A straight cut works on every parejo shape and every ring gauge, it opens the head fully so the draw is whatever the roller built, and when it goes wrong it goes wrong visibly instead of secretly. A double-blade version is worth the small premium because two blades closing together support the cap from both sides rather than pushing the wrapper ahead of a single edge. Anyone owning one cutter owns this one.

Punch. A punch leaves most of the cap in place, which keeps the head tidy and concentrates the smoke through a small opening. That concentration is the whole trade. It makes an airy cigar taste fuller and a tight cigar tighter, sometimes to the point of being unsmokable, so a punch is a poor first move on an unfamiliar stick. It also needs room to work: on a ring gauge much under 48 the punch is nearly as wide as the head, and on a figurado there is no flat surface for it to bite into at all. Tar collects around the plug on longer smokes.

V-cut. The wedge takes out a channel rather than a disc, which gives good airflow without removing much cap... genuinely useful on thick ring gauges and the clear winner on box-pressed cigars, where a flat head suits a notch better than it suits a circle. The weakness is the tool. A cheap V-cutter with a dull or badly set blade crushes the head instead of slicing it, and a crushed head cannot be uncrushed. Buy one good one or skip the category.

Scissors. Sharp, precise, and completely unforgiving. Cigar scissors give the most control over depth and angle of anything here, which matters on tapered heads, and they punish a shaky hand or a bad angle immediately. A skill tool, not a starter tool. Cheap ones are worse than a cheap guillotine, because scissor blades that do not meet cleanly tear across the whole width of the head at once.

Go by the head, not the brand

Round parejo head, any size: guillotine, or a punch if the cigar is 48 ring or larger and you want a firmer draw. Belicoso or torpedo: guillotine only, taken small and taken again if the draw is tight... a punch has nothing to grip and scissors are the expert version of the same cut. Perfecto with a closed, tapered foot and a rounded point: guillotine, cut just enough to open it. Flat box-pressed head: V-cut first, guillotine second. The shape decides the tool, and the tool never decides the shape. Owning a punch is not a reason to punch a torpedo, and the fact that a V-cutter is in your pocket is not a reason to wedge a 42-ring corona that has no room for the notch.

Figurados... cut small, cut again

Pointed heads change the math. On a torpedo or pyramid (the figurado family) there's no cap seam to sight against, and the shoulder sits much farther down the taper. The move is to start small... take off two or three millimeters at the tip, test the draw, and cut a little more if it's tight. Small first is the whole trick, because more can always come off and none goes back on.

Some smokers cut torpedos at an angle... thirty to forty-five degrees, opening facing the tongue... to widen the draw while keeping the taper. Treat that as a style choice; an angled cut can also pull unevenly, so watch the burn if you try it.

What a bad cut does

Cut too deep and two things go wrong at once. The wrapper loses its anchor and begins to unravel, and the oversized opening lets in so much air that the cigar burns hot and fast... heat is where harshness comes from. A ragged cut from a dull blade causes its own trouble: pinched, torn wrapper and loose tobacco on the tongue. The asymmetry is worth remembering... a cut that's too shallow can always be re-cut, but a cut that's too deep can't be undone.

No cutter around

Emergencies happen, in rough order of preference: a sharp pocket knife does the job cleanly... hold the blade still against the cap just above the shoulder and roll the cigar against the edge, scoring a line all the way around, then peel off just that outer layer of cap. The knife never has to slice through the head, only through the top skin of the cap, so there's nothing to crush or tear. A thumbnail can do a rougher version of the same score-and-peel. Teeth are the true last resort... bite gently to crack the cap and peel it, rather than chomping through. All three get a cigar lit. None of them beats an actual cutter.

On the site

• The Xikar XO is a geared double guillotine... rated Buy Again after it retired every other cutter in the drawer.
• The Xikar Xi2 Hero Series cuts cleanly but rated Wouldn't Buy at Hero Series pricing... with a note that a standard Xi2 on sale is a different conversation.

Keep reading

• How to light a cigar
• Anatomy of a cigar
• The draw, explained
• Figurado shapes

Reviewed at WSA since this page was written