The Holiday Cigar Gift by Occasion: Host, Office, Stocking, Under the Tree, Client

A holiday cigar gift is rarely one gift. Over six weeks you bring something to a dinner, draw a name at the office, fill a stocking, put a real present under the tree, send something to a client and lay cigars out for the guests on New Year's Eve. The same shelf of cigar accessories and boxes covers all six, but not the same piece, and not at the same price. So this guide is sorted by the occasion. Find the one in front of you, and the pick is on the same row.

We have kept every pick to the houses we would put our own name behind: El Septimo, Davidoff, Zino, Cohiba, Atabey, Byron and Alfonso for the cigars, and Brizard and Co, El Septimo, S.T. Dupont and Maccarrone for the pieces around them. If the person you are buying for does not smoke at all, our guide to luxury gifts for men is the better read. If you are the one who does not smoke and you are buying for someone who does, our Christmas gift guide for a cigar smoker starts from what you know about him. This one starts from the calendar.

Why the occasion decides the holiday cigar gift

Because each occasion carries its own rules about size, price and how the thing is opened. A host gift is handed over at the door and should be small enough to set on the sideboard without ceremony. An office exchange has a cap that everyone knows. A stocking has a physical limit. The gift under the tree is opened slowly in front of people who care. A client gift arrives by courier and is opened alone, so the box does the talking. And the cigars on the New Year's Eve table are not a gift to one person but to the room. Get the occasion right and the budget sets itself.

Two things hold across all six. First, when you are not sure what someone smokes, give the tool or the cigar in a tube, not the loose box. Second, cigars are for adults 21 and older, whoever is buying and whoever is opening.

The short answer, by occasion

The occasion	Our pick	Why it fits	Price today
The host gift	Davidoff Winston Churchill Petit Panetela, tin of five	A tin, not a box, from a house every guest at the table will know.	$44.00
The host gift	El Septimo Fabuloso ashtray	Eight inches of glazed ceramic with gold foiling, in its own colored gift box.	$40.80
The office exchange	Brizard Trilogy punch, Dakota Black	Steel and black leather, inside most office caps, and nobody else will bring one.	$49.00
The stocking	Brizard single cigar tube, rosewood	Long and narrow, lined in Spanish cedar, and it holds the one cigar you put in it.	$99.00
The stocking	El Septimo Double-Jet torch lighter and punch	Two tools in one, five finishes, and it arrives in a gift box.	$106.25
Under the tree	Brizard Show Band 3 cigar case, Dakota Black	Italian leather over Spanish cedar. The piece he carries all year.	$230.00
Under the tree	El Septimo Salvador Dali, box of 20	A full box of a medium Costa Rican toro he will still be smoking in March.	$500.00
The client gift	El Septimo Sacred Arts Van Gogh gift box	Ashtray, cutter and lighter in matching artwork, in one presentation box.	$731.00
The client gift	El Septimo x S.T. Dupont Augustus Ping lighter	A limited soft-flame lighter from the two names that matter most at this level.	$1,606.50
The New Year's Eve table	El Septimo Botticelli Salomon, box of 20	A tall figurado that looks like an occasion in the hand, with enough for a houseful.	$600.00

Those are today's prices on our site. The cards below always show the current figure and whether the piece is in stock.

The host, the office and the stocking: six pieces that stay small. Prices and stock are live.

The host gift: handed over at the door

You are invited to dinner, and you want to arrive with something better than a bottle everyone else brought. The rule for a host gift is that it should be easy to receive. No unwrapping at the door, nothing that needs a humidor by tomorrow, nothing so costly that the host feels he has to reciprocate.

Our first choice is the Davidoff Winston Churchill Petit Panetela tin. Five slim 4 x 38 cigars in a white Davidoff tin, medium in body, creamy with a little spice and black coffee. A host can open it after the guests leave, or hand one to a friend on the patio that same night. Tins and tubes are our standing advice for a host gift, because the cigar is protected until it is wanted.

If the host is a serious smoker, bring a pair of Cohiba Red Dot Coronas in their glass tubes. The Red Dot is the Cohiba made in the Dominican Republic under a Cameroon wrapper, medium in body, with cedar, cocoa and roasted nuts. Two tubes in a small bag is a complete gift, and the box of 20 is there when a pair is not enough. A single Zino Platinum Barrel in its aluminum tubo does the same job with more presence, a 6 x 60 that reads medium to full.

For the host who does not smoke but keeps a patio where guests do, the El Septimo Fabuloso ashtray is the piece. It is a jumbo glazed ceramic ashtray, eight and a quarter inches across with four wide rests and El Septimo gold foiling, and it comes in a colored gift box of its own, so there is nothing to wrap. We hold it in six colors. Of everything on this page it is the one guests ask about, because it is large, it is bright, and it ends up on the table where everyone sees it.

The office exchange: inside the cap, and still a real gift

Most office exchanges set a limit and most people spend the limit on something forgettable. A small cigar accessory is the exception, because a well-made tool is rare in a pile of mugs and candles. The one rule is to choose the tool, not the cigars, unless you know for certain that the name you drew smokes.

The Brizard Trilogy punch in Dakota Black is what we would put in the pile. It is a three-point stainless steel spear finished in black leather, and it opens a cigar with three small piercings instead of a cut, an old way of doing it that gives a clean draw. At $49.00 it lands inside most caps, and it is small enough to hand across a conference table. The Fabuloso ashtray at $40.80 is the other one, for the colleague whose desk or patio could use a piece of color.

When the exchange allows a little more, or when you know the person, a Davidoff Winston Churchill Belicoso pack of four at $39.00 or the tin of five Petit Panetelas gives cigars that are already in their own packaging. Both come from our Davidoff shelf, which is where we send anyone who wants a name that needs no explaining.

The stocking: long, narrow and worth finding

A stocking has one practical requirement: the gift has to fit. That makes it the natural home for a cigar tube, a pocket lighter or a single cigar in its own tube, and it makes the stocking the easiest place in the whole season to give something a cigar smoker will use every week.

The Brizard single cigar tube in rosewood is made for it. It is a wooden tube lined in Spanish cedar that holds one cigar up to a 60 ring gauge, and it seals tightly enough to keep that cigar in condition on a flight or a round of golf. We carry the single tube in fifteen finishes, from $89.00 in black leather, and our travel tube gift guide goes through them.

The other stocking piece is the El Septimo Double-Jet torch lighter and punch. Two torch flames that hold in a breeze, a punch cutter that unscrews from the base, a gift box, and five finishes, of which black and gold is the one we reach for most. Slide a single Cohiba Red Dot Corona in its tube in beside it and the stocking is done. There is a wider choice of pocket pieces in our lighter collection, and the Double-Jet is the one that fits the budget and the shape.

Under the tree: the one he opens slowly

This is the gift from a wife, a husband, a partner, a parent, or the children together, and it is the only one on this page that gets opened in front of the people who matter most. It should last past January. We would spend it on the piece he carries, the piece he keeps on the desk, or the box of cigars he has been buying one at a time.

Under the tree: six pieces that last past January. Choose the box from the menu on the Salvador Dali card. Prices and stock are live.

The piece he carries. The Brizard Show Band 3 cigar case in Dakota Black holds three cigars in Italian leather laminated over Spanish cedar, with cedar dividers you can move. It is the case we would carry ourselves, and the black is the one that goes with everything. Pair it with the Brizard V cutter in Croco Black, which takes a deep wedge out of the cap and comes in its own leather pouch, and you have the two things he will carry together. Our cutter collection has the straight-cut and the scissor versions if a V cut is not his habit.

The piece he keeps on the desk. The Brizard Cylindrical Desk Humidor stands upright, holds ten to fifteen cigars in a Spanish cedar lining and comes with its own humidifier. It is the humidor for a man who does not yet have one, because it looks right on a desk even half empty. We carry it in ten finishes. For the bar or the patio table, the El Septimo Emperor Napoleon triple torch lighter is a gold-plated art piece with the Napoleon artwork printed under a protective coating, three jets, and the kind of weight in the hand that a stocking lighter does not have.

The matched set. If you would rather give one box with everything in it, the El Septimo crocodile travel set puts a crocodile-embossed travel case, a matching lighter and a matching cutter in one gift box, in green or orange. It is the easiest luxury cigar gift set we sell for under the tree, and our gift-set guide explains what to look for in a set.

The box of cigars. If he smokes El Septimo, and a great many of our customers do, the Salvador Dali box of 20 is our pick for under the tree. It is a 6½ x 54 toro from the Sacred Arts Collection, made in Costa Rica, medium in body. In our humidor it smokes with sweet coffee up front, a little cherry and vanilla, and dark chocolate at the end, and it is approachable enough that the box does not need a seasoned smoker to be finished. We keep more of El Septimo in stock than any other shop, so if his band is a different one, we almost certainly have the box.

The client gift: opened alone, so the box has to speak

A client gift is different from everything above because you will not be in the room. It arrives by courier, it is opened at a desk, and the first impression is the packaging. That is why we steer client gifts toward the El Septimo presentation boxes and the S.T. Dupont pieces: they are made to be opened without you. This is also the one occasion where it is fine to spend more, because the budget belongs to the company. For the full reasoning, our closing gift guide covers the client who can buy anything.

The client gift and the New Year's Eve table: six pieces with presence. Choose the box from the menu on the cigar cards. Prices and stock are live.

The El Septimo Sacred Arts Van Gogh gift box is our first choice for a client. A triple-jet torch lighter, a double-bladed guillotine cutter and a porcelain ashtray, all three in the same artwork, in one presentation box. We carry the set in four editions and the Van Gogh is the one with art everybody recognizes. Of all the gifts for cigar smokers on this page, it is the one that needs the least explaining when the courier leaves. If the client already has a full desk, the Alfonso Añejo ashtray is a single piece with the same presence at $250.00.

For the client with a real collection, the Brizard Airflow humidor in whisky calf leather and black holds 70 to 80 cigars in Spanish cedar, with the humidification system and the hygrometer included, and it ships ready to season. There are smaller and larger pieces among our desktop humidors, and at the top of that shelf sits the Maccarrone Supersport 40, built by hand in Tuscany with hand-inlaid marquetry under a high-gloss lacquer.

When the gift should be one object rather than a set, the Augustus Ping is the piece. It is a soft-flame lighter made by S.T. Dupont and finished in El Septimo's Emperor Augustus artwork, with two symmetrical flames for an even toast and the Dupont ping when the lid opens. It is a limited edition, and we carry all six designs alongside the matching pens in the El Septimo x S.T. Dupont collection. And if the client smokes and you want the cigars to match the box, the El Septimo 20th Anniversary Doble Gran Reserva box of 14 is the limited release that marks two decades of the house, a 6 x 52 toro, medium to full, in a box that was made to be presented.

The New Year's Eve table: cigars for the room

The last gift of the season is not wrapped. It is the box you open at eleven o'clock so that every guest who wants one has one. For this you want a cigar that looks like an occasion, smokes in an hour to ninety minutes, and comes twenty or twenty-five to the box so that nobody has to be told there are none left.

The El Septimo Botticelli Salomon box of 20 is what we would put on the table. It is a 7½ x 58 figurado, tapered at both ends, medium to full, with espresso and earth, cocoa and aged leather. It is tall enough that guests notice it, and it is the one we would hand around ourselves when the night is the point. For a room with lighter tastes, the Cohiba Red Dot Robusto box of 25 is the medium-bodied classic every guest will recognize, and the Atabey Idolos box of 25 is the short one, a 4 x 55 rested at least five years before release, for the guest who steps outside for twenty minutes and comes back. If there are only four of you at midnight, the Byron 175 Tribute Set gives four aged Costa Rican cigars in a presentation box and nothing left over.

Put a table lighter and a large ashtray out with the box. Guests will not carry their own, and our ashtray collection has the El Septimo porcelain pieces that hold four cigars at once. If there is whiskey on the table too, our whiskey pairing guide says which of these cigars goes with which bottle.

The short version

Sort the season by the occasion and the holiday cigar gift chooses itself. A tin or a pair of tubes for the host. A punch or a bright ashtray for the office exchange. A rosewood tube or a torch lighter for the stocking. A leather case, a desk humidor or a full box of Salvador Dali under the tree. A presentation set or a Dupont lighter for the client. And a box of twenty Botticellis on the table at midnight.