Where to Smoke a Cigar in Winter | Smoke Rings Hazleton PA

It’s Too Cold for the Garage

Every cigar smoker in this part of Pennsylvania knows the November routine.

It’s 34 degrees. You’ve got a cigar you’ve been looking forward to. So you put on a coat, stand in the garage with the door cracked, and smoke it in 20 minutes because your hands are going numb. You didn’t taste half of it. Your wife is going to say the house smells.

There’s a better version of that.

The cold ruins the cigar, not just the experience

This is the part people don’t think about. Cold is actually bad for the smoke itself.

You rush it. A cigar wants an hour. Standing in the cold, you’re drawing every 20 seconds to stay warm, which makes it burn hot and taste harsh and bitter.

Cold kills flavor. Your palate dulls down in the cold the same way food tastes flat when you’re freezing. All the subtlety you paid for, you’re not getting.

Wind wrecks the burn. It burns one side faster than the other and you spend the whole time touching it up.

Moving it in and out is rough on it. Taking a cigar from a 70-degree humidor into 30-degree air and back is a swing it doesn’t love.

What a lounge solves

That’s the whole case, honestly. Indoors, 70 degrees, a chair you can sink into, a drink in your hand, and an hour where you’re not rushing.

We’re 3,000 square feet in Hazleton: a full bar, a walk-in humidor, leather lounge seating and an outdoor patio for when it’s nice. In the winter, the inside is the point.

You’re also not alone in there. Winter is honestly our best season, because this is where people who’d otherwise be in a cold garage end up. Poker nights, ladies’ nights, live music. Come on a night when something’s happening or come on a quiet Tuesday and have the chair to yourself.

If you’re going to smoke outside anyway

Some guys are going to do it regardless, so a few things that help:

• Take fewer, slower draws, even though your instinct says the opposite
• Keep it out of direct wind, even a wall helps
• Pick something shorter. A 45-minute cigar beats a 90-minute one you’ll abandon.
• Bring the cigar from the humidor right before you light it, not an hour ahead
• A torch lighter beats a soft flame in cold and wind, every time

Come get warm

Smoke Rings Cigar Bar, Hazleton, PA. 21+, bring ID.

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