Cigarillo
A cigarillo [a Spanish word, correctly pronounced "cee-gah-ree-yo]] is a short, narrow cigar. Unlike cigarettes, cigarillos are wrapped not in paper but in whole-leaf tobacco. Cigarillos can be found for purchase alone or in packs, and are often made without filters. Unlike a cigarette, they are not meant to be inhaled but rather smoked like a cigar. Generally, a cigarillo contains about 3 grams of tobacco, the length varies from 3 to 4 in. and the diameter is about 5 to 8 mm. Comparatively, a cigarette contains less than 1 gram of tobacco and is less than 5" in length and 10 mm in diameter.
Cigarillos are often machine made. This allows the price to be lower than if they were hand made. They are not produced in as large a quantity as cigarettes but cigarillos are often seen by passionate cigar smokers as a lower quality product. As cigarillos are often smoked in quantities similar to cigarettes (between 5 and 10 per day), it is not usually necessary to store them in humidors. Cigarillos are also known in Europe as a 'Seven Minute Cigar'. This due to the fact that they can be smoked in seven minutes and are often seen as an alternative not only to cigarettes but also where someone does not have enough time to smoke a full cigar. To improve their image, cigarillos can often be found in ornamentally designed tins. Manufacturers explain this offers more protection for the product against crushing. This may also be explained as more efficient way of targeted advertising. In the US, popular consumer brands include Swisher Sweets, Dutch Masters, Black and Mild, Al Capone, White Owl, Optimo, and Winchester, while in the UK, they include Hamlets and Cafe Creme. Inexpensive cigarillos are often identified using a brand name rather than the term cigarillo. Many cigarillos, such as Swishers, White Owls, Mini-Dutches are cut open and rerolled with marijuana to create blunts, in fact, this is likely the most common method, aside from bluntwraps.
[edit] Spanish
In Spanish-speaking countries, as well as in the Philippines, "cigarrillo" is a the spanish word for cigarette. In the Phillipines, it is often spelled sigar'lyo. Short, narrow cigars are referred to instead as little cigars. In America, cigarillos could also be used for smoking marijuana. The marijuana is hand wrapped into the whole leaf paper.
