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TSRC, Tob. Sci. Res. Conf., 2019, 73, abstr. 110

What is acid about acid cigars?

LAUTERBACH J.H.
Lauterbach & Associates, Macon, GA, USA

The so-called ACID cigars are reportedly popular among cigar smokers who want different smoking experience. The cigars are not acid as the pH-values of slurries of the filler, binder, and wrapper of two brand-styles of ACID cigars (Blondie and Kuba Kuba, both from Drew Estates) were not atypical of such values reported in the literature for cigar tobaccos. According to one of the Drew Estates web pages, the ACID came from the nickname of a person associated with the business. Samples of each brand-style were dissected into wrapper, binder, and filler portions for the main part of the cigar. The wrapper on the mouth end was a separate piece of tobacco and some have reported it to have a sweet taste. It was keep separate from the remainder of the fractions as was the tobacco underneath that wrapper. Each fraction was placed in a glass jar. The initial aroma of the cigar when it was removed from the wrapper was similar to a man's cologne, the aroma rapidly dissipated from the different fractions once they were removed from the entire cigar. Each fraction was first extracted with hexane. The hexane extracted tobacco was further extracted with acetone, and then with 95% ethanol. The wrapper on the mouth end was extracted with water and the aqueous extract was analyzed by LC using a Cogent Amide column with RI detection. The organic extracts were analyzed on a Cogent Phenyl Hydride column using UV detection at 280 nm and 254 nm. As with other flavored cigars, the aroma is nice, but there is not much there besides constituents normally found in cigar tobaccos.