It's a Boy Cigars: What a New Father Hands Out, and What He Keeps for Himself

Buying it's a boy cigars comes down to two decisions: a box of twenty to twenty five short, approachable cigars from a house people recognize, and one better cigar that the new father keeps for himself. The first is for the friends, the brothers-in-law and the office. The second is the one he will actually remember, and for that we point most people at the El Septimo collection, because it is the box that looks like the occasion felt.

This is the one cigar custom in America with real history behind it rather than a story a retailer made up. An anthropologist, Richard Reed, wrote an entire book about how American men take part in a birth, and the cigar has its place in it. By the early 1950s a major machine-made brand was printing "It's a boy" straight onto the band. What has changed since then is only the cigar itself. Nobody wants a novelty smoke any more; they want a real one, short enough to finish, from a name that means something when it is handed over.

How many it's a boy cigars you actually need

Across our own customers the hand-out is almost always twenty to twenty five, which is convenient, because that is exactly what a box holds. The count is not about how many people smoke. It is about how many people you want to hand something to. Half of the recipients will not have lit a cigar in a year, and a few never have, which is why the hand-out box should be short, mild to medium, and forgiving. The father-to-be usually comes in the week before the due date, buys the box, and then asks the question that matters: what about me?

If you are planning something larger than a box, the arithmetic is the same as it is for a wedding, and our guide to groomsmen cigars walks through how the numbers scale. For a birth, one box is nearly always enough.

The hand-out box: short, from a house people know

The hand-out has one job, which is to be a pleasure for someone who may not smoke often. That means a small size, a Connecticut-style wrapper, and a name that reads as a gift rather than a gesture. Four boxes do this better than anything else on our floor, and every one of them comes from the Davidoff family of houses or from El Septimo.

Davidoff Primeros Dominican, box of 20

The Davidoff Primeros Dominican is the most elegant answer to the question. It is a 4 1/8 by 34 petit panetela, mild, with an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper over Dominican tobacco, and it is over in about fifteen minutes. That is the whole point. Someone who has never held a cigar can accept one, smoke it on the porch, and not feel they have committed to an evening. The box of twenty works out to just over six dollars a stick, which is the least expensive way to put the Davidoff name in twenty hands. The rest of the house is in our Davidoff collection.

Zino Nicaragua Short Torpedo, box of 25

The reason we push the Zino Nicaragua Short Torpedo for a hand-out is practical: the head is already cut. Twenty five people will not own twenty five cutters, and a cigar that is ready to light removes the one moment that makes a non-smoker feel foolish. It is a stout 4 by 52, medium in body, Ecuadorian Connecticut over a Nicaraguan binder, and it is the fullest-flavored of the four hand-outs here. We would give it to a crowd that already smokes a little, and it is the one we suggest when the friends are cigar people already.

AVO Classic Robusto Tubos, box of 20

Half of a hand-out box never gets smoked on the day. It goes into a jacket pocket, a glovebox, a desk drawer, and comes out a week later. The AVO Classic Robusto Tubos solves that, because every cigar is sealed in its own aluminum tube. It is a 5 by 50 robusto, mild to medium, creamy and easy, and the tube means the cigar someone finds in a coat in October is the same cigar you handed them in September.

El Septimo Salvador Dali Toro, box of 20 or bundle of 10

When the circle is smaller and the budget is not, the El Septimo Salvador Dali is the hand-out people talk about afterwards. It is a Costa Rican toro, medium in strength, and it opens with sweet coffee before settling into something bready with cherry and vanilla behind it. We have smoked a great many of these across the years we have carried El Septimo, and it is the one in the Sacred Arts range we hand to someone who wants to understand why the house costs what it does. The bundle of ten is the right size for the family; the box of twenty is for a father who wants the office to remember the week.

The one he keeps for himself

A new father has twenty five minutes, not ninety, and he is more tired than he has ever been. The cigar he keeps back should respect both facts. Our answer is the El Septimo Double Shot White, a 3 3/4 by 68 that is full-bodied from the first draw, leather and black pepper and roasted almond, with a creamy coffee finish that arrives sooner than it has any right to in a cigar this short. It is dense, it is unhurried in a hurry, and it is finished before the baby wakes up. We keep it in stock by the hundred because it is the cigar our regulars reach for when they have a short window and want the window to count.

If he is newer to this, or the day has already been long, something gentler in a similar size is the better call. The sizes and the smoking times are laid out in how long a cigar lasts, and the Cigar Finder narrows the floor to a handful in four questions if you would rather answer than read.

Buying for the new father instead of with him

Most of the people who read a page like this are not the father. They are the friend, the sister, the business partner, the father-in-law, looking for a gift that is not another blanket. New dad cigars are a fine gift, but the accessory is the better one, because the box gets smoked and the cutter gets kept.

A V cutter is the piece we recommend first. It takes a deep wedge out of the cap, it works on every size in the hand-out box and on the Double Shot's 68 ring, and the Brizard V Cutter in Croco Black comes in a leather pouch with a magnetic closure that makes it feel like a present before it is opened. If he already has a cutter, a lighter with a punch built into the base, like the El Septimo Double-Jet Torch, is two tools in one and lights cleanly on a windy balcony. The full range of cutters is in cigar cutters, the lighter is in the block below, and our cutter and lighter guide explains what the money buys at each step up.

The third piece is a case. A Brizard Show Band holds three cigars up to 48 ring, or two larger ones, in a cedar-lined leather body with a window so you can see which is which without opening it. It is what turns two cigars from the hand-out box into something he can carry to the first dinner out after the birth. The rest of the options are in travel cases and tubes, and if you want to build the whole thing into one package, our guide to cigar gift sets covers what goes in and what stays out.

Baby announcement cigars and gender reveal cigars, without the gimmick

We are asked for pink bands and blue bands more often than you would think, and our advice is always the same: skip them. A printed novelty band on an inexpensive cigar tells the recipient the cigar was an afterthought. A real cigar from a real house, in the maker's own box, with a card in the father's handwriting, says the opposite. If the announcement is the point, we can add a personal touch. Personalized designs and custom messages are available where offered, and a short line on a card inside the box lands harder than any band ever printed.

Cigars for new fathers are, in the end, a message from an adult to other adults. The celebration belongs to him, and the cigar is the oldest way there is of letting people share it.

The house we hold deepest

We carry more El Septimo than any other retailer we know of, across every collection the house makes, and that depth is why both the hand-out and the keeper can come from the same shelf. The full range, singles and boxes, is below.

Questions we get asked